' 

Nlfl 


C.  P.  HUNTINGT0N 


A    BREEZE 


FROM 


THE    WOODS 


BY 


W.  C.    BARTLETT 


AUTHOR'S    PRIVATE    EDITION 


l'nn  un.iiT,   1 
W.  C.  BARTLBTT. 


IIIK 


DANIEL   C.    OILMAN,    LL.D., 

PRESIDENT  OF 
THE  JOHNS  HOPKINS  UNIVERSITY  ; 

AT  WHOSE  SUGGESTION  MANY  OF  THESE  ESSAYS  WERE 

WRITTEN  ; 

THIS  VOLUME  is  DEDICATED  TO  THE  STEADFAST  FRIEND, 
AND  THE  MEMORY  OF  GOLDEN  HOURS. 


PREFACE. 


The  series  of  papers  comprised  in  this  volume,  were 
originally  published  in  the  Overland  Monthly,  and 
in  the  order  in  which  they  now  appear.  A  small 
private  edition  in  book  form,  has  been  printed  at  the 
instance  of  friends  who  read  these  essays  years  ago 
with  an  appreciation  quite  beyond  the  writer's  ex 
pectation.  They  have  also  reminded  him  fre 
quently,  that  these  papers  had  a  tendency  to  wander 
about  the  country,  and  on  several  occasions  have  been 
taken  in  a  long  way  from  home.  It  was  thought  best 
to  recall  the  fugitives,  and  put  them  into  such  a  home 
like  dress  that,  at  least,  the  author  and  his  friends 
would  know  them  again.  It  has  not  been  deemed 
advisable  to  make  any  material  revision.  They  were 
not  the  result  of  any  leisure  hours,  but  were  pre 
pared  after  the  exacting  duties  of  the  day  as  a 
journalist. 

As  these  essays  have  seasoned  now  for  several  years, 


during  which  occasional  overtures  for  publication  have 

been  declined,  this  private  edition  is  suffered  to  go 
to  press  when  no  literary  ambition  is  to  be  gratified, 
and  no  considerations  of  gain  can  have  any  influence. 
The  final  paper  of  the  series  only,  has  been  slightly 
abridged.  It  was  originally  prepared  as  a  platform 
address,  and  still  retains  that  distinctive  character. 
If  these  pages  disclose  more  of  the  freedom  of  out 
door  life  than  the  philosophy  born  of  private  medita 
tion,  it  is  because  the  author  loves  the  woods  better 
than  the  town ;  the  garden  better  than  the  low  diet 
and  high  thinking  of  any  philosopher  (who  goes 
above  the  clouds);  and  the  friendships  which  have 
ripened  under  genial  skies,  better  than  all. 

TIN-;  Hoi  >i   UN   i  HI    1  III.L. 
,   i  SSo. 


Tri!7ER:iTT 


CONTENTS. 


/.  A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS,    ....  '.) 

II.  LOCUSTS  AND   WILD  HONEY  ' W 

III.  A  WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO, 53 

IV.  UNDER  A  MADRONO, 77 

V.  A  DAY  ON  THE  LOS  OA  TOS, 95 

VI.  SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA,     ,     ....  113 

VII.  THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL, 135 

VIII.  THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL,      .     ...  159 

IX.  LITERATURE  AND  ART, 


A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS. 


"  SHALL  we  go  to  the  Springs  this  year  ?"  asked  a 
demure  woman  as  she  handed  the  tea  and  toast  across 
the  table. 

Now  there  are  more  than  five  thousand  springs  in 
the  Coast  Range  which  have  never  been  defiled.  It 
isn't  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  one's  mortal 
system  that  it  should  be  daily  saturated  with  a  strong 
solution  of  potash  or  sulphur.  As  a  pickle,  I  much 
prefer  a  few  gallons  dipped  up  from  the  ocean,  or  a 
spring  bath  from  a  little  mountain  stream.  Do  you 
think  it  is  evidence  of  sanity  in  a  hungry  man  to 
expect  a  wholesome  dinner  in  a  country  hotel  kept 
expressly  for  city  boarders  ?  We  will  have  a  vacation 
nevertheless.  If  our  homes  were  in  Paradise,  I  think 
we  should  need  it.  One  might  get  tired  even  of 
looking  at  sapphire  walls  and  golden  pavements.  Did 
you  observe  how  promptly  that  artisan  dropped  his 
tools  when  he  heard  the  mid-day  warning?  Many  a 


man  gets  more  than  one  significant  warning  to  drop 
his  tools — all  his  instruments  of  handicraft  and  brain 
work — at  mid-summer  and  be  off.  If  he  does  not 
heed  this  protest  of  nature,  there  will  come  a  day 
when  the  right  hand  will  lose  its  cunning  and  the 
brain  its  best  fibre.  It  is  better  to  sit  down  wearily 
under  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  and  take  a  new 
baptism  from  the  ooze  and  drip,  than  to  trudge  on  as  a 
money-making  pilgrim  up  the  bald  mountain,  because 
forsooth  some  men  have  reached  it  at  mid-day — and 
found  nothing.  What  we  need  is  not  so  much  to  seek 
something  better  in  the  long  run  than  we  have  found. 
There  may  be  a  sweet,  even  throb  to  all  the  pulsations 
of  domestic  life,  and  no  small  comfort  in  gown  and 
slippers,  and  the  unfolding  of  the  damp  evening  news 
paper.  But  the  heaven,  of  what  sort  it  is,  may  seem  a 
little  fresher  by  leaving  it  for  a  month's  airing.  It  is 
a  point  gained  to  break  away  from  these  old  conditions 
and  to  go  forth  somewhat  from  one's  self.  The  lobster 
breaks  his  shell  and  next  time  takes  on  a  larger  one. 
He  is  a  better  lobster  for  that  one  habit  of  his.  The 
trouble  with  many  men  is  that  they  never  have  but 
one  shell,  and  have  never  expanded  enough  to  fill 
that.  They  do  not  need  a  vacation,  when  the  beginning 


A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS.       n 

and  end  of  them  is  vacuity.  It  is  possible  that  the 
horizon  may  shut  down  too  closely  about  one  and  be 
too  brazen  withal ;  and  that  as  we  go  the  weary  round 
the  cycle  of  our  own  thoughts  will  be  finished  with 
every  revolution  of  the  earth.  There  is  no  great 
difference  after  all  in  a  desert  of  sand  and  a  desert  of 
houses,  when  both  by  a  law  of  association  suggest 
eternal  sameness  and  barrenness.  There  is  a  weari 
some  sameness  in  this  human  current  which  is  shot 
through  the  narrow  grooves  of  the  great  city.  What 
inspiration  does  one  get  from  this  human  concussion? 
Are  there  any  sparks  of  divine  fire  struck  off,  or  struck 
into  a  man  by  it?  In  all  this  jostling  crowd  is  there 
any  prophet  who  knows  certainly  what  his  dinner  shall 
be  on  the  morrow?  The  struggle  is  mainly  one  for 
beef  and  pudding,  with  some  show  of  fine  raiment, 
and  possibly  a  clapboard  house  in  which  there  is  no 
end  to  stucco.  The  smallest  fraction  may  yet  be  used 
to  express  the  value  of  that  element  of  civilization 
which  teaches  society  how  much  it  needs  rather  than 
how  little  will  suffice. 

Argenti,  the  banker,  fared  sumptuously  every  day. 
But  you  noticed  that  he  had  the  gout  cruelly.  You 
didn't  find  him  at  any  fashionable  watering-place,  last 


12  A  n in-: !•:/.!•:  /'/;». \f  rni:  \V<K>DS. 

summer.  His  pavilion  was  under  an  oak  tree,  with 
the  padding  of  a  pair  of  blankets.  His  meat  and 
drink  for  six  weeks  were  broiled  venison  and  spring 
water.  What  his  rifle  did  not  procure  and  the  spring 
supply,  he  utterly  refused  to  swallow.  He  went  up  the 
mountain-side  with  muffled  feet  and  a  vexed  spirit. 
He  came  down  per  saltern  singing  something  about 
the  soul  of  one  Brown,  which  he  said  was  marching 
on.  It  is  not  necessary  that  our  modern  pulpiteers 
should  go  back  to  the  diet  of  locusts  and  wild  honey. 
Hut  there  is  comfortable  assurance  that  there  is  no 
gout  in  that  fare.  And  if  more  of  naturalness  and  fiery 
earnestness  would  come  of  that  way  of  living,  it  might 
be  worth  the  trial.  There  is  fullness  of  meat  and 
drink,  and  much  leanness  of  soul.  It  only  needs  some 
manifestation  of  individuality,  with  an  honest  sim 
plicity,  to  suggest  a  commission  of  lunacy. 

"  This,"  said  the  divinity  who  served  the  toast  and 
M  is  your  vacation  philosophy.  How  much  of  it 
are  you  going  to  reduce  to  practice?" 

As  miK  h  as  we  can  crowd  into  three  weeks,  or  more 
of  rational  living.  There  might  be  a  charm  in  savage 
life  if  it  were  not  for  the  fearfully  white  teeth  of  the 
wolf  and  the  cannibal.  There  is  nothing  in  Blot's 


A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS.       13 

book  which  teaches  how  a  missionary  should  be 
cooked;  and  a  roast  pig,  that  pleasant  adjunct,  is 
only  well  done  by  the  Feejee  Islanders.  And  so,  after 
some  further  discussion,  oracular  and  otherwise,  it  was 
agreed  that  precedents  should  go  for  nothing ;  and 
that  the  vacation  of  three  weeks  should  be  spent  with 
a  rational  regard  for  health,  economy  and  pleasure. 
Ourselves,  including  a  half-grown  boy,  would  count 
three,  and  our  neighbors — husband  and  wife — would 
make  up  the  convenient  number  of  five.  It  was 
agreed,  moreover,  that  we  should  not  enter  a  hotel, 
nor  accept  any  private  hospitality  which  included  in 
door  lodging.  No  journeys  for  the  benefit  of  baggage 
smashers.  No  more  notable  incident  will  happen  on 
this  part  of  the  planet,  for  some  time  to  come,  than 
the  fact  that  two  females,  not  averse  to  a  fresh  ribbon 
in  spring-time,  consented  to  a  journey  of  three  weeks 
without  taking  along  a  trunk  of  the  size  of  a  Swiss 
cottage,  or  so  much  as  a  single  bandbox.  Railroads, 
steamboats  and  stages  were  to  be  given  over,  as  things 
wholly  reprobate.  There  happened  to  be  on  the  farm 
of  one  of  the  party  three  half-breed  horses,  well  broken 
to  harness  and  saddle.  These,  with  a  light,  covered 
spring  wagon,  should  suffice  for  all  purposes  of  loco- 


i4  A  iu;i-:i:zi:  ri;n.\i  TIII-:  WOODS. 

motion  a  single  span  before  the  wagon,  and  the  third 
horse  with  a  saddle,  to  admit  of  an  occasional  change. 
1  he  half-breed  horses,  which  would  not  sell  in  the 
market  for  fifty  dollars  each,  are  the  best  in  the  world 
for  such  a  campaign.  They  never  stumble,  are  not 
frightened  at  a  bit  of  bad  road;  under  the  saddle  they 
will  pick  their  own  way,  jumping  over  a  log  or  a  small 
stream  with  the  nimbleness  of  a  deer.  A  tether  on 
the  grass  at  night  keeps  them  in  good  trim.  Bred  in 
the  country,  they  are  the  proper  equine  companions 
with  which  to  plunge  into  the  forest  and  to  go  over 
unfrequented  roads.  They  have  an  instinct  which  is 
marvelously  acute.  They  will  take  the  scent  of  a 
.^ri/./ly  in  the  night  sooner  than  the  best  trained  dog, 
and  are  quite  as  courageous  ;  for  both  dog  and  horse 
will  break  for  camp,  at  the  first  sniff  of  one  of  these 
monsters.  When  stage  horses  start  on  a  tearing  run 
over  a  mountain  road  at  midnight,  look  for  bear 
tracks  in  the  morning.  It  is  but  fair  to  say  that  bruin 
does  not  generally  meddle  with  people  who  are  not  of 
a  meddlesome  turn  of  mind.  When  put  upon  his 
mettle,  he  goes  in  for  a  square  fight;  and  as  far  as  my 
scanty  data  may  be  relied  upon,  he  whips  in  a  majority 
of  instances.  A  Henry  rifle,  two  shot-guns,  a  small 


A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS.       15 

military  tent,  some  heavy  blankets,  and  a  good  supply 
of  fishing-tackle,  with  two  or  three  cooking  utensils 
and  some  small  stores,  made  up  the  equipment.  No 
wonder-mongering  was  to  be  done.  It  was  not  in 
order,  therefore,  to  go  to  the  Big  Trees,  Yosemite  or 
the  Geysers.  There  are  more  wonders  on  a  square 
mile  of  the  Coast  Range  than  most  of  us  know 
anything  about. 

No  vacation  is  worth  having  which  does  not, 
abruptly  if  need  be,  turn  one  away  from  all  familiar 
sights  and  sounds,  all  the  jarring,  creaking  and  abra 
sion  of  city  life.  The  opening  vista  in  the  redwood 
forest  where  the  path  is  flecked  with  tremulous 
shadows  and  gleams  of  sunlight,  will  lead  near  enough 
to  Paradise,  provided  one  does  not  take  a  book  or  a 
newspaper  along,  and  never  blasphemes  against  nature 
by  enquiring  the  price  of  stocks.  The  young  lady 
who  undertook  to  read  Byron  at  the  Geysers  last 
summer,  was  greeted  with  an  angry  hiss  of  steam 
which  made  her  sitting  place  very  uncomfortable. 
There  was  but  one  snatch  of  Norma  sung  during  this 
excursion.  Something  was  said  about  its  being  sung 
"divinely;"  but  the  fact  that  every  grey  squirrel  barked, 
and  every  magpie  chattered  within  the  space  of  forty 


i6  A  ni;i:  i-:/i-:  /•'//<  M/  THE  WOODS. 

furlongs,  left  a  lingering  doubt  about  the  heavenliness 
of  that  particular  strain  of  music.  It  is  useless  to 
mock  at  nature,  for  in  the  end  she  will  make  all  true 
souls  ashamed.  An  excursion  into  the  woods  calls 
for  some  faith  in  Providence,  and  some  also  in  rifles 
and  fishing  gear ;  and  when  dinner  depends  upon 
some  sort  of  game  which  is  flying  over  head,  or 
running  in  the  bushes,  one  must  walk  circumspectly 
withal,  and  remember  to  keep  the  eye  of  faith  wide 
open.  It  is  of  no  use  to  cite  the  instance  of  the 
prophet  who  was  fed  by  ravens.  He  had  a  fit  of  the 
blues,  and  could  not  have  drawn  a  bead  upon  a  rifle. 
Besides,  if  he  knew  that  game  was  coming  to  him, 
what  was  the  use  of  going  after  it  ? 

Here  and  there  a  pair  of  doves  were  flitting  about, 
and  now  and  then  a  cotton-tail  rabbit  made  an  awk 
ward  jump  from  one  clump  of  bushes  to  another.  It 
was  a  handsome  beginning  for  the  youngster,  who  sent 
a  stone  into  the  hazel  bush  and  took  bunny  on  the 
keen  jump  as  he  came  out.  It  was  a  sign  that  there 
would  be  no  famine  in  the  wilderness.  Another  brace 
of  rabbits  and  half  a  dozen  wild  doves  settled  the 
dinner  question.  Wild  game  needs  to  be  hung  up  for 
a  reason  to  mellow;  the  quail  does  not  improve  in 


A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS.       17 

this  w?y,  but  pigeons  and  wild  ducks  and  venison  are 
vastly  better  for  it.  A  trout  affords  an  excellent 
mountain  lunch,  and  the  sooner  he  is  eaten  after 
coming  out  of  the  water  the  better.  And  so  of  all  the 
best  game  fish. 

Did  it  ever  occur  to  you  that  while  women  may  be 
skillful  fishers  of  men,  and  will  even  make  them  bite 
at  the  bare  hook — they  make  the  poorest  trout  fishers 
in  the  world  ?  There  is  an  awkward  fling  of  the  line, 
as  if  the  first  purpose  was  to  scare  every  fish  out  of 
the  water.  There  is  a  great  doubt  if  any  trout  of  the 
old  school  ever  takes  a  bait  thrown  in  by  feminine 
hands;  if  indeed  he  is  tempted  into  taking  it,  he 
makes  off  with  it,  and  that  is  the  last  sign  of  him  for 
that  day.  That  last  remark  is  uttered  at  some  peril,  if 
the  most  vehement  feminine  protest  means  anything 
serious.  Two  speckled  fellows  were  taken  from  a  little 
pool  under  a  bridge,  the  most  unlikely  place  in  the 
world  according  to  common  observation,  and  yet 
chosen  by  the  trout  because  some  sort  of  food  is 
shaken  down  through  the  bridge  at  every  crossing  of 
a  vehicle.  Two  more  from  a  pool  above,  and  there 
were  enough  for  lunch.  There  may  be  sport  in  taking 
life  thus.  But  whoever  puts  the  smallest  life  out  in 


is  A  nui:i:/.i:  ri;n.\i  Tin:  \\'<H>DS. 

mere  wantonness,  and  for  the  sport  of  slaying,  without 
reference  to  a  human  want,  is  a  barbarian.  These 
carnivorous  teeth  show  that  we  are  creatures  of  prey. 
Hut  conscience  ought  to  be  the  Lord's  game  keeper 
and  give  an  unmistakable  warning  when  we  have  slain 
enough.  Had  there  been  a  mission  to  shed  innocent 
blood  for  the  love  of  it,  a  couple  of  wild  cats  which 
were  traveling  along  a  narrow  trail,  with  the  ugliest 
faces  ever  put  upon  any  of  the  feline  tribe,  would  have 
come  to  grief.  Their  short,  stumpy  tails  and  bad 
countenances  came  near  drawing  the  fire  of  one  of  the 
pieces.  But  although  wild  game  is  better  than  tame 
meat,  there  is  no  evidence  on  record  that  a  wild  cat  is 
any  better  than  a  tame  one.  They  only  needed  hand 
some  tails  to  have  been  taken  for  half-grown  tigers.  If 
every  creature  with  an  unlovely  countenance  is  to  be  put 
to  death  on  that  account,  what  would  become  of  some 
men  and  women  who  are  not  particularly  angelic  ? 
The  pussies  are  out  for  their  dinner,  and  so  are  we. 
We  cannot  eat  them,  and  they  must  not  eat  us.  Kach 
of  them  may  feast  on  a  brace  of  song-birds  before 
night.  Hut  it  may  be  assumed  that  each  of  the  females 
who  make  up  the  party  are  competent  to  make  way 
with  a  brace  of  innocent  doves  for  dinner. 


A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS.       19 

If  it  were  not  for  the  fox,  the  wild-cat  and  the  hawk, 
the  quail  is  so  wonderfully  prolific  here  that  it  would 
overrun  the  country,  destroying  vineyards  and  grain 
fields  without  limit.  I  suspect,  also,  that  the  great 
hooded  owl  drops  down  from  his  perch  at  night,  and 
regales  himself  on  young  quails,  whose  nightly  covert 
he  knows  as  well  as  any  bird  in  the  woods.  It  is  easy 
enough  to  find  out  what  the  owl  eats,  but  does  anybody 
knows  who  eats  the  owl  ?  You  may  criticise  him  as  a 
singing  bird,  and  he  is  rather  monotonous  along  in  the 
small  hours  of  the  morning.  But  worse  music  than 
that  may  be  heard  in-doors,  and  not  half  so  impressive, 
withal.  There  is  no  harm  in  noting  that  the  two  or 
three  attempts  to  sing  "  Sweet  Home  "  by  the  camp- 
fire  on  the  first  night  were  failures.  At  the  time  when 
the  tears  should  have  started,  there  was  a  break  and  a 
laugh  which  echoed  far  up  in  the  ravine.  Nobody 
had  lost  a  home,  but  five  happy  mortals  had  found 
one,  the  roof  of  which  was  of  emerald,  supported  by 
great  pillars  of  redwood,  which  cast  their  shadows  far 
out  in  the  wilderness,  as  the  flames  shot  up  from  the 
camp-fire.  The  game  supper  was  no  failure.  One 
only  needs  to  throw  overboard  two-thirds  of  the 
modern  appliances  of  the  kitchen,  including  the  cast- 


20  A  /;/,•/;/;//;  FROM  THE  WOODS. 

iron  stove — that  diabolical  invention  of  modern  times 
—to  insure  perfect  success  in  the  simple  business  of 
cooking  a  dinner.  Do  not,  good  friends,  forget  the 
currant  jelly,  or  you  may  weary  of  doves  and  cotton 
tails,  as  the  Israelites  did  of  quails  and  manna.  And 
if  you  want  the  elixir  or  life,  make  the  tea  of  soft 
spring  water,  which  you  will  never  find  issuing  out  of 
any  limestone  or  chalk  rock,  or  where  flints  much 
abound. 

The  little  white  tent  had  a  weird  aspect,  as  though 
it  might  have  been  a  ghost  in  the  forest.  It  was 
absurdly  intrusive,  and  harmonized  with  nothing  in 
the  woods  or  foreground  save  the  white  wall  of  mist 
that  every  night  trended  landward  from  the  ocean,  but 
never  touched  the  shore.  After  a  little  time,  the 
novelty  of  the  camp  wears  off,  and  a  blessed  peace 
comes  down  on  weary  eyes  and  souls.  There  is  no 
use  in  keeping  one  eye  open  because  a  dry  stick  cracks 
now  and  then,  or  the  night-hawk  sputters  as  he  goes 
by.  Daylight  comes  at  four  o'clock,  and  the  woods 
are  thronged  with  animal  life.  The  song-sparrow 
MS  to  twitter,  finches  and  linnets  hop  about;  and 
down  in  the  oaks  the  robins  sing,  and  the  wood 
peckers  are  tapping  the  dry  limbs  overhead.  The 


A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS.       21 

grey  squirrel  arches  his  handsome  tail  and  runs  along 
in  merry  glee;  and  there  is  such  a  wealth  and  joy  of 
abounding  life — such  a  sweet  concord  of  sounds  and 
brimming  over  of  gladness — that  Heaven  seems  a  little 
nearer  for  the  morning  anthem.  But  a  heavenly  state 
is  not  inconsistent  with  a  reasonable  appetite. 

Never  did  trout  bite  more  ravenously  than  at  sunrise 
that  morning.  The  shadows  were  on  the  pools,  and. 
the  gamey  fellows  more  than  once  jumped  clear  out  of 
the  water  for  an  early  breakfast.  In  losing  theirs,  we 
got  our  own.  In  the  long  run,  the  losses  and  gains 
may  be  nicely  balanced.  Mem. :  It  is  far  better  that 
the  trout  should  be  losers  at  present.  The  philosophy 
may  be  fishy,  but  it  points  towards  a  good  humanizing 
breakfast.  And  it  cannot  have  escaped  notice,  that 
the  greater  part  of  that  philosophy  which  the  world  is 
in  no  hurry  to  crucify  points  towards  the  dinner-table. 

Did  it  ever  strike  you  that  the  asceticism  of  the 
middle  ages,  which  retreated  to  the  cloister  content 
with  water-cresses  as  a  bill  of  fare,  was  never  very 
fruitful  of  high  and  profound  discourse  ?  The  phil 
osopher  who  goes  up  into  the  clouds  to  talk,  and 
prefers  gruel  to  trout  before  going,  makes  an  epigastric 
mistake.  He  has  taken  in  the  wrong  ballast ;  and  has 


22  A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOOJ>s. 

omitted  some  good  phosphorescent  material,  which 
might  have  created  a  nimbus  around  his  head  as  he 
entered  the  clouds.  A  mistake  in  the  gastric  region 
leads  to  errors  of  the  head  and  heart.  I  do  not  know 
whether  there  is  any  ground  of  hope  for  a  people  who 
have  not  only  invented  cast-iron  stoves,  but  have 
invented  "  help  "  in  the  form  of  the  she-Titans  who 
have  made  a  wholesome  dinner  well-nigh  impossible. 
Death  on  a  pale  horse  is  poetical  enough.  Hut  death 
in  the  black  stove  of  many  a  kitchen  is  terribly  realistic. 
If  these  trout  were  to  be  cooked  by  "  hireling  hands," 
the  very  woods  would  be  desecrated,  and  the  smoke 
of  the  sacrifice  would  be  an  abomination. 

Does  a  brook  trout  ever  become  a  salmon  trout? 
But  the  former  goes  down  to  the  sea,  and  comes  back 
the  next  year  a  larger  fish.  He  ascends  the  same 
stream,  and  may  be  a  foot  or  more  in  length,  according 
to  the  size  of  the  stream.  I  refer,  of  course,  to  those 
Coast  Range  streams  which  communicate  with  the 
ocean.  If  a  bar  or  lagoon  is  formed  at  the  mouth  of 
a  stream,  so  that  it  is  closed  for  a  few  months,  and 
nearly  all  the  fish  arc  taken  out  by  the  hook,  on  the 
owning  of  the  lagoon  or  creek  a  fresh  supply  of  trout 
will  come  in  from  the  ocean,  differing  in  no  con" 


A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS.       23 

ceivable  way  froirh  brook  trout,  except  that  they  are 
larger.  They  take  the  grasshopper  and  the  worm 
like  honest  fish  bred  up  to  a  country  diet.  Some 
icthyologist  may  show  a  distinction  without  a  differ 
ence.  The  camp-fire  reveals  none. 

The  ocean  slope  of  the  Coast  Range  is  much  the 
best  for  a  summer  excursion.  The  woods  and  the 
waters  are  full  of  life.  There  is  a  stretch  of  sixty  miles 
or  more  from  the  San  Gregorio  Creek  in  San  Mateo 
County,  to  the  Aptos  Creek  on  Monterey  Bay,  in 
Santa  Cruz  County,  where  there  is  an  average  of  one 
good  trout  stream  for  every  five  miles  of  coast  line. 
There  are  wooded  slopes,  dense  redwood  forests,  and 
mountains  in  the  back  ground  where  the  lion  still  has 
a  weakness  for  sucking-colts,  and  the  grizzly  will 
sometimes  make  a  breakfast  on  a  cow,  in  default  of 
tender  pigs.  But  neither  lion  nor  bear  is  lord  of  the 
forest.  Both  are  sneaking  cowards,  the  lion  not  even 
fighting  for  her  whelps.  It  is  better,  however,  on 
meeting  either,  not  to  prolong  the  scrutiny,  until  you 
have  surveyed  a  tree  every  way  suitable  for  climbing. 
The  "shinning"  having  been  done,  you  can  make 
up  faces  and  fling  back  defiance  with  some  show  of 
coolness.  Then  all  along  there  is  a  fore-ground  of 


24       A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS. 

yellow  harvest  fields,  farm-houses  and  orchards;  the 
cattle  cluster  under  the  evergreen  oaks  at  mid-day. 
Wide  off  is  the  great  sounding  sea  with  its  fretting 
shore  line  and  its  eternal  reach  of  waters — so  near 
and  yet  so  remote.  Low  down  on  the  horizon  are 
the  white  specks  of  ships  drawing  near  from  the  other 
side  of  the- globe — coming  perhaps  from  the  dear  old 
home  to  lay  treasures  at  your  feet  in  the  new  one — 
linking  the  new  and  the  old  together  by  this  swift 
and  silent  journey,  begun  as  of  yesterday,  and  ended 
to-day.  There  is  no  place  afar  off.  The  palms  lift 
up  their  "  fronded  "  heads  just  over  there;  and  the 
cocoanut  drops  down  as  from  an  opening  heaven- 
more  is  the  shame  that  those  frowsy,  low-browed 
cannibals  are  not  content  therewith,  but  so  affect  the 
rib  roast  of  a  white  man,  and  that  too  in  a  tropical 
climate!  If  men  would  always  look  up  for  their  food 
they  might  become  angels.  But  looking  down,  they 
may  yet  become  tadpoles  or  demons.  It  needs  but  a 
little  Buddhism  grafted  on  to  the  development  theory 
to  turn  some  of  the  human  species  back  into  devil-fish. 
For  when  one  is  wholly  given  up  to  seek  his  prey  by 
virtue  of  suction  and  tentacula,  he  might  as  well  live- 
under  water  as  out  of  it.  It  might  be  hard  to  go  back 


A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS.       25 

and  begin  as  a  crocodile ;  but  if  some  of  our  species 
have  once  been  there  and  show  no  improvement  worthy 
of  mention  since,  why  the  sooner  these  voracious,  jaw- 
snapping  creatures  are  turned  back  perhaps  the  better. 
Ketchum  has  made  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  this 
year  in  buying  up  doubtful  titles  and  turning  widows 
and  orphans  out  of  their  homes.  Tell  me,  oh  Brahmin, 
if  this  man  was  not  a  crocodile  a  thousand  years  ago? 
And  if  he  slips  any  where  a  link  in  his  chain  of 
development,  where  will  he  be  a  thousand  years 
hence  ? 

It  is  a  good  thing  to  pitch  the  tent  hard  by  the  sea 
shore  once  in  a  while.  Salt  is  preservative;  and 
there  is  a  tonic  in  the  smell  of  sea  weed.  Your  best 
preserved  men  and  women  have  been  duly  salted. 
The  deer  sometimes  come  down  to  get  a  sip  of  saline 
water,  and  are  partial  to  mineral  springs,  which  one 
can  find  every  few  miles  along  the  mountain  slopes. 
The  sea  weeds,  or  mosses,  are  in  their  glory.  Such 
hues  of  carnation  and  purple,  and  such  delicate 
tracery  as  you  shall  never  see  in  any  royal  garden.  A 
hook  was  thrown  in  for  the  fish,  perchance,  with  the 
dyes  of  Tyrian  purple.  But  there  came  out  a  great 
wide-mouthed,  slimy  eel,  which  was  kicked  down  the 


26  A  r>i;i:i:/i:  rito.M  y •///•;  WOODS. 

beach  into  the  water,  with  a  hint  never  to  reveal  so 
much  ugliness  again  on  any  shore  of  the  round 
world.  Your  sea-lion  has  no  beauty  to  speak  of;  but 
he  is  an  expert  fisher  and  knows  how  to  dry  himself 
upon  the  rocks.  When  a  hundred  of  them  take  to 
the  water,  with  their  black  heads  bobbing  about,  they 
might  be  taken  for  so  many  shipwrecked  contrabands. 
How  many  ages  were  required  for  the  ocean  to  quarry 
these  grains  of  sand,  which  under  a  glass  become 
cubes  and  pentagons  as  goodly  as  the  stones  of  Venice? 
No  more  under  this  head,  for  "  quahaugs"  and  mussels 
are  terribly  anti-suggestive. 

The  young  quails  are  only  half-grown  ;  but  they  run 
about  in  very  wantonness  in  all  directions.  How  keen 
is  the  instinct  of  danger  in  every  tenant  of  the  woods ; 
and  yet  birds  hop  about  in  all  directions  with  a 
consciousness  that  no  evil  will  befall  them.  A  couple  of 
wood-peckers  on  a  trunk  of  a  tree  just  overhead,  have 
curiously  ribbed  and  beaded  it  up  with  acorns  fitted 
into  holes  for  winter  use.  So  nicely  is  the  work  done, 
and  so  exact  the  fit,  that  the  squirrels  cannot  get  them 
out  And  yet  the  wild  doves  which  we  want  for  our 
breakfast,  flit  away  upon  the  first  sign  of  approach. 
The  era  of  shot-guns  is  not  a  millennium  era,  and  the 


A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS.       27 

screech  of  a  bursting  shell  is  not  exactly  a  psalm  of 
life.  The  tenderness  of  the  Hindoo  in  the  matter  of 
taking  life  for  food,  I  suspect,  is  because  of  his 
philosophy.  Soul  transmigration  holds  him  in  check, 
otherwise  he  might  be  found  eating  his  grandmother. 
But  a  school-girl  riots  on  tender  lambs,  and  is  not  a 
whit  afraid  of  eating  her  ancestors.  There  is  a  curious 
linking  of  innocence  with  blood-shedding  in  our  times, 
enough  to  suggest  an  unconscious  cannibalism,  one 
remove  from  that  of  the  happy  islanders. 

An  old  farmer  came  up  to  see  us,  attracted  by  the 
white  tent,  and  having  a  lurking  suspicion  that  we 
might  be  squatters.  He  confirmed  the  theory  that 
the  flow  of  water  from  springs  in  this  region  was 
permanently  increased  by  the  great  earthquake.  "  You 
see,"  said  he,  "  it  gave  natur'  a  powerful  jog."  After 
the  shock,  a  column  of  dust  arose  from  the  chalk  cliffs 
and  falling  banks  on  the  shore  line,  which  could  have 
been  seen  for  twenty  miles.  There  was  a  noise  as  of 
the  rumbling  of  chariots  in  the  mountain  tops,  and  the 
smoke  went  up  as  from  the  shock  of  armies  in  battle. 
The  great  sea  was  silent  for  a  moment,  and  then 
broke  along  the  shore  with  a  deep  sigh  as  though 
some  mighty  relief  had  come  at  last.  AH  the  trees  qf 


A  nin-: !•:/!•:  n;<>M  Tin:  WOODS. 

the  mountain  sides  bowed  their  heads  as  if  adoring 
that  Omnipotence  which  made  the  mountains  tremble 
at  its  touch.  If  one  could  have  been  just  here,  he 
might  have  seen  the  grandest  sight  of  ages;  for  this 
was  the  very  focus  of  the  earthquake.  As  it  was,  we 
got  no  impression  of  that  event  above  a  suspicion 
that  a  mad  bull  was  hutting  away  at  the  northwest 
corner  of  a  little  country  church,  with  some  alarming 
signs  that  be  was  getting  the  best  of  the  encounter. 

One  learns  to  distinguish  the  sounds  of  this  multi 
tudinous  life  in  the  woods,  after  a  few  days,  with  great 
facility.  The  bark  of  the  coyote  becomes  as  familiar 
as  that  of  a  house  dog.  But  there  is  the  solitary  chirp 
of  a  bird  at  midnight,  never  heard  after  daylight,  of 
which  beyond  this  we  know  nothing.  We  know  better 
from  whence  come  the  cries,  as  of  a  lost  child  at 
night,  far  up  the  mountain.  The  magpies  and  the 
jays  hop  round  the  tent  for  crumbs;  and  a  coon 
helped  himself  from  the  sugar  box  one  day  in  our 
absence.  He  was  welcome,  though  a  question  more 
nice  than  wise  was  raised  as  to  whether,  on  that 
occasion,  his  hands  and  nose  were  clean.  There  is 
danger  of  knowing  too  much.  It  is  better  not  to 
know  a  multitude  of  small  things  which  are  like 


A  BfiEEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS.  29 

nettles  to  the  soul.  What  strangely  morbid  people 
are  those  who  can  suggest  more  unpleasant  things  in 
half  an  hour  than  one  ought  to  hear  in  a  life  time  ! 
Did  I  care  before  the  question  was  raised,  whether  the 
coon's  nose  were  clean  or  otherwise  ?  Now  there  is  a 
lurking  suspicion  that  it  was  not.  If  you  offer  your 
friend  wine,  is  it  necessary  to  tell  him  that  barefooted 
peasants  trampled  out  the  grapes  ?  Is  honeycomb  any 
the  sweeter  for  a  confession  that  a  bee  was  also  ground 
to  pulp  between  the  teeth?  We  covet  retentive 
memories.  But  more  trash  is  laid  up  than  most 
people  know  what  to  do  with.  There  is  great  peace 
and  blessedness  in  the  art  of  forgetfulness.  The 
memory  of  one  sweet,  patient  soul  is  better  than  a 
record  of  a  thousand  selfish  lives. 

It  was  a  fine  conceit,  and  womanly  withal,  which 
wove  a  basket  out  of  plaintain  rods  and  clover,  and 
brought  it  into  camp  filled  with  wild  strawberries. 
Thanks,  too,  that  the  faintest  tints  of  carnation  are 
beginning  to  touch  cheeks  that  were  so  pallid  a  fort 
night  ago.  Every  spring  bursting  from  the  hill  side 
is  a  fountain  of  youth,  although  none  have  yet 
smoothed  out  certain  crow  tracks.  The  madrono,  the 
most  brilliant  of  the  forest  trees,  sheds  its  outer  bark 


30  A  nni-:i-:/.K  FROM  THE  WOODS. 

every  season ;  when  the  outer  rind  curls  up  and  falls 
off,  the  renewed  tree  has  a  shaft  polished  like  jasper 
or  emerald.  When  humanity  begins  to  wilt,  vhat  a 
pity  that  the  cuticle  does  not  peel  as  a  sign  of 
rejuvenation  !  There  is  also  a  hint  of  a  sanitary  law 
requiring  people  averse  to  bathing  to  peel  every  spring. 
There  is  a  sense  of  relief  in  getting  lost  now  and 
then  in  the  impenetrable  fastnesses  of  the  woods ;  and 
a  shade  of  novelty  in  the  thought  that  no  foot-fall  has 
been  heard  in  some  of  these  dells  and  jungles  for  a 
thousand  years.  It  is  not  so  easy  a  matter  to  get 
lost  after  all.  The  bark  of  every  forest  tree  will  show 
which  is  the  north  side,  and  a  bright  cambric  needle 
dropped  gently  upon  a  dipper  of  water  is  a  compass 
of  unerring  accuracy.  A  scrap  of  old  newspaper 
serves  as  a  connecting  link  with  the  world  beyond. 
The  pyramids  were  probably  the  first  newspapers — a 
clumsy  but  rather  permanent  edition.  Stereotyping  in 
granite  was  the  pioneer  process.  Then  came  the 
pictured  rocks — the  illustrated  newspaper  of  the 
aborigines,  free,  so  far  as  I  know,  from  the  diabolism 
which  pollutes  the  pictorial  papers  of  our  time. 
There  axe  some  heights  of  civilization  which  are  the 
fruitful  subject  of  gabble  and  mild  contemplation. 


A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS.       31 

But  who  fathoms  the  slums  so  deep  and  bottomless, 
out  of  whose  depths  spring  the  inspiration  of  some  of 
the  illustrated  prints  of  our  time  ?  Photography  is 
the  herald  of  pictorial  illustrations  which  are  yet  to 
flood  the  world.  The  mentotype  has  not  yet  been 
discovered — a  little  machine  to  take  the  impression  of 
the  secret  thoughts  of  a  friend,  as  now  his  features  are 
transfixed  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye.  The  world  is 
not  yet  sober  and  circumspect  enough  for  this  last 
invention.  And  these  interior  lives  might  lose  some 
thing  of  imaginary  symmetry  by  turning  inside  out. 

But  let  us  hope  that  the  musician  is  born  who  will 
yet  come  to  the  woods  and  take  down  all  the  bird 
songs.  What  a  splendid  baritone  the  horned  owl  has ! 
Who  has  written  the  music  of  the  orioles  and  thrushes? 
Who  goes  to  these  bird  operas  at  four  o'clock  in  the 
morning  ?  There  is  room  for  one  fresh,  original  music 
book,  the  whole  of  which  can  be  written  at  a  few 
sittings  upon  a  log  just  where  the  forests  are  shaded 
off  into  copses  and  islands  of  verdure  beyond. 

It  is  something  to  have  lived  three  weeks  without 
a  sight  of  the  sheriff,  the  doctor  or  the  undertaker. 
Something  of  a  victory  to  have  passed  out  from  under 
the  burden  of  intense  anxiety  into  a  condition  of 


32  A  it  1:1-:  !•:/!•:  WROM  /'///•;  WOOM, 


indifference  as  to  how  this  boisterous  old  world 
is  getting  on.  If  so  much  as  a  fugitive  letter  had 
reached  us,  it  would  have  been  construed  into  a  mild 
case  of  assault  and  battery.  The  business  of  rejuvena 
tion  commences  with  lying  down  on  the  ground  at 
night  with  the  head  due  north,  that  the  polar  current 
may  strike  the  weary  brain  first  and  gently  charge  the 
whole  mortal  system.  The  days  of  renewal  may  end  by 
circumventing  a  two-pound  trout,  or  with  a  long  range 
rifle  shooting  at  a  running  deer.  But  as  no  pilgrim 
ever  reached  the  gates  of  Paradise  with  a  pack  on  his 
back,  so  it  is  reasonably  certain  that  heaven  never 
came  down  to  one  who  carried  his  burden  into  the 
wilderness  in  vacation. 

What  a  great  repose  there  is  in   these    mountains 
draped  in  purple  and  camping  like  giants  hard  by  the 

And  yet  what  an  infinite  shifting  of  light  and 
shadow  there  is  on  sea  and  shore  !  Is  the  artist  yet 
to  be  born  on  this  soil  who  will  paint  the  mountains 
in  the  glory  of  an  evening  transfiguration  ;  or  who  will 
catch  the  inspiration  of  these  grand  defiles,  opening 
\Utas,  and  landscapes  ripened  and  subdued  under  the 
harvest  sun?  We  will  leave  him  our  bill  of  fare,  that 
he  may  take  heart  on  finding  that  while  fame  follows 


A  BREEZE  FROM  THE  WOODS. 

translation,  a  good  dinner  may  safely  precede  that 
event.  And  as  for  you,  oh  friend,  with  the  sallow  face 
and  sunken  eyes — you  had  better  get  to  the  woods 
and  read  it  for  very  life. 


LOCUSTS  AND  WILD  HONEY. 


LOCUSTS  AND  WILD   HONEY/ 


IT  matters  little  how  one  betakes  himself  to  the 
wilderness,  so  that  he  gets  there  in  some  fitting  mood 
to  enjoy  its  great  hospitality.  If  a  bruised  and 
battered  guest,  so  much  the  more  need  of  the  profound 
peace  and  restfulness  of  the  woods.  There  is  a  fine 
contrast  in  the  autumn  tints  of  yellow  stubble  fields 
set  with  the  unfading  green  of  oaks,  like  emeralds  in 
settings  of  gold.  The  mysteries  of  the  uplifted 
mountains  are  veiled  in  with  a  dreamy  haze,  as  if  all 
harsh  and  jerky  outlines  were  the  unfinished  places 
yet  to  be  rounded  into  fullness  and  beauty  before  the 
day  of  unveiling  cornes.  These  mighty  throes  of 
nature  may  be  in  accordance  with  some  law  of 
adjustment  working  towards  an  eternal  perfection  of 
finish,  of  which  we  have  not  yet  attained  so  much  as 
a  dim  conception.  If  our  play-houses  are  toppled 
over,  so  much  the  better  for  some  of  the  shams  which 


*  As  the  title  of  this  paper  was  adopted  more  than  eleven  years  ago,  it  has 
not  been  deemed  expedient  to  change  it  because  Mr.  John  Burroughs  has, 
recently  chosen  it  as  the  title  of  his  book. 


38  LOCUSTS  AND   WILD  IfONhJY 

now  and  then  need  the  wholesome  revision  of  fires 
and  earthquakes.  You  see  that  ambitious  wooden 
palace  down  the  valley.  What  does  it  symbolize 
more  than  pretence,  weakness  and  barrenness  of  all 
aesthetic  culture?  Some  day  nature  will  feel  the 
affront,  and  this  blot  in  the  foreground  of  a  noble 

* 

picture  will  be  gone.  Is  it  because  this  type  of  civiliza 
tion  is  but  for  a  day,  that  the  habitations  of  men  are 
built  for  a  day  also  ?  Where  do  our  architects  get  their 
inspiration,  that  they  cut  such  fantastic  capers  in 
wood?  It  might  be  well  to  put  a  new  padlock  on 
the  tomb  of  Cicero  before  any  further  imitations  of 
the  villa  at  Tusculum  are  perpetrated  ?  The  savage 
leaves  behind  some  show  of  broken  pottery,  or  at  least, 
here  and  there  an  arrow-head  of  flint.  We  do  not 
build  well  enough  to  secure  any  respectable  ruins. 
\Vh.u  other  antiquities,  besides  debts,  are  we  likely  to 
bequeath  to  posterity  ? 

The  trailing  dust  of  the  beaten  thoroughfare  comes 
to  an  end  at  last.  The  ox-teams  have  crawled 
down  into  the  valley,  more  patient  than  the  driver, 
who  causes  a  perpetual  series  of  undulations  to  run 
along  thc'ir  backs  by  an  inhuman  prodding.  There 
are  some  vocations  which  seem  to  develope  all  the 


LOCUSTS  AND  WILD  HONEY.  39 

hatefulness  and  cruelty  of  human  nature,  and  this  is 
evidently  one  of  them.  In  five  minutes  more  there 
will  be  no  visible  sign  of  civilization  in  all  the  horizon. 
If  one  is  piqued  at  the  silence  of  a  reception  in  the 
wilderness,  let  him  consider  how  gracious  it  is,  withal. 
It  will  grow  upon  him  from  day  to  day,  until  he  may 
come  to  think  that  these  very  solitudes  have  been 
waiting  for  his  coming  a  thousand  years.  It  is  not  to 
go  apart  from  ourselves,  but  to  recover  a  more  intense 
self-consciousness,  that  we  need  this  seclusion.  The 
ceaseless  jar  and  uproar  of  life  set  in  a  hard  material 
ism  at  last,  because  there  has  been  an  absence  of  all 
softening  influences  and  all  seasons  of  communion.  It 
is  a  small  thing  that  the  dead  are  sometimes  turned  to 
stone  by  some  chemistry  of  nature.  But  what  of  the 
living  who  are  every  day  turning  to  stone  by  an 
increasing  deadness  to  all  human  sympathies  ? 

The  host  is  at  home  in  the  wilderness,  but  you  may 
not  see  his  face  for  many  a  day.  In  the  meantime 
there  is  the  guest  chamber ;  enter  and  make  no  ado 
about  it.  The  trees  overarch  you  gently,  and  bend 
with  graceful  salutations  ;  the  rocks  are  most  generous 
hearth-stones,  and  the  pools  under  the  cliffs  are  large 
enough  for  a  morning  splash.  You  have  only  to 


40  /.orr.vy.V  J.V/>    WILD  HONEY. 

climb  the  precipice  yonder  to  count  more  towns  and 
villages  than  you  have  fingers.  Hut  the  sight  is  not 
worth  the  effort,  since  one  needs  to  pray  earnestly  for 
deliverance  from  both.  If  most  country  villages  on 
this  coast  are  not  so  many  blots  upon  otherwise  fine 
landscapes,  how  much  do  they  fall  short  of  them  ? 
The  authorities  of  the  most  favored  town  in  the  State, 
so  far  as  climate  and  physical  characteristics  go, 
could  think  of  nothing  better  than  to  destroy  a  line  of 
Mission  willows,  extending  through  the  main  street 
for  nearly  a  mile — every  tree  a  monument  of  historic 
interest— and  then,  with  innocent  boorishness,  looked 
up  to  the  faces  of  men  who  were  ashamed  of  them, 
for  some  token  of  approval.  Tree-murder  has  cul 
minated,  let  us  hope,  since  Time  has  been  busy 
swinging  his  scythe  close  upon  the  heels  of  the 
culprits.  There  may  be  hope  for  the  next  generation. 
The  children  born  upon  the  soil  may  get  a  better 
inspiration,  and  draw  a  more  generous  life  from  the 
earth  which  nourishes  them.  How,  otherwise,  shall 
these  dreary  highways  and  barren  villages  be  translated 
from  ugliness  to  beauty?  What  a  divine  chalK 
do  these  encompassing  mountains  and  grandest  of 
forests  send  out  to  men  to  cease  defiling  the  earth  ! 


LOCUSTS  AND   WILD  HONEY.  41 

It  is  not  so  much  a  question  whether  the  "  coming 
man"  will  be  a  wine-bibber,  as  whether  the  wilderness 
and  the  solitary  place  shall  be  glad  for  him.  Will  he 
plant  trees  ?  Will  he  train  rivulets  adown  the  moun 
tains  into  stone  fountains  by  dusty  roadsides  ?  Will 
he  refuse  to  cut  down  trees  because  they  are  old,  with 
as  sturdy  a  decision  as  he  would  refrain  from  cutting 
a  man's  legs  off  because  he  chanced  to  be  old  and 
venerable  ?  Will  he  recognize  the  great  truth  that  the 
earth  is  the  garden  of  the  Lord,  and  that  he  is  sent 
forth  to  dress  it,  and  make  it,  if  possible,  still  more 
beautiful  ?  If  he  will  not,  by  all  that  is  good,  let  a 
message  be  sent  to  the  "  coming  man"  not  to  come. 

What  a  large  freedom  there  is  in  the  wilderness  ! 
You  come  and  go  with  a  consciousness  that  you  will 
be  fed  and  lodged  in  a  manner  both  befitting  you  and 
your  host.  There  are  no  pressing  attentions,  and 
no  snobbery  to  offend.  Mr.  Bullion  said  at  his 
feast  that  he  had  made  more  than  a  quarter 
of  a  million  of  dollars  by  some  lucky  ventures  this 
year ;  and  that  he  is  interested  in  several  horses 
of  a  remarkably  fast  gait.  Did  he  propose  to  make 
some  grateful  return  for  so  much  good  fortune? 
Would  he  found  a  library?  endow  a  school?  encourage 


42  LOCUSTS  AND   \\ll.h 

some  scientific  expedition?  become  a  generous  patron 
of  the  struggling  literature  of  the  new  commonwealth? 
He  had  thought  of  none  of  these  things.  Nor  did  it 
occur  to  him  how  much,  emptiness  there  was  at  the 
feast.  It  is  saddest  of  all  that  so  many  of  our  rich 
men  neither  recognize  times  nor  opportunities.  They 
have  not  yet  learned  to  make  a  feast  an  occasion  of 
noble  deeds.  Of  grosser  hospitality  there  is  no  lack  ; 
but  the  lame,  the  halt,  and  the  blind,  are  none  the 
better  for  it. 

There  is  something  ignoble  in  reducing  the  problem 
of  life  to  a  mere  game  of  "keeps."  The  world  is 
probably  mortgaged  or  put  in  pawn  for  more  than  it 
is  worth,  considering  how  much  rubbish  goes  with  it. 
The  wrappers  of  Egyptian  mummies  of  high  lineage, 
which  were  wound  up  four  thousand  years  ago,  have 
been  sold  in  our  times  for  paper-stock.  Hut  will  the 
men  of  these  times,  who  boast  that  they  have  got  the 
world  in  pawn,  contribute  so  much  as  one  nether 
^aiment  to  posterity  four  thousand  years  hence?  The 
world  changes  hands  every  thirty  years,  and  a  new  set 
of  pawn-keepers  appears  ;  but  it  is  the  same  old  grip. 
There  will  be  confusion  yet,  when  the  secret  is  found 
out  that  the  world  is  worth  only  a  moiety  of  the  sum 


LOCUSTS  AND  WILD  HONEY.  43 

for  which  it  is  pledged,  and  there  is  a  general  call  for 
collaterals. 

It  is  not  safe  to  despise  this  tonic  of  the  wilderness. 
Most  men  do  not  know  how  small  they  are  until  they 
go  forth  into  some  larger  place.  It  is  good  to  have 
illusions  dispelled  in  a  healthy  way.  A  man  is  great  in 
the  counting-room,  pulpit  or  forum,  because  no  one  has 
thought  it  worth  the  while  to  dispute  the  assumption. 
The  position  held  at  first  by  sufferance,  may  ripen 
into  a  possessory  title,  provided  he  sticks  to  his  claim. 

The  pholas  wears  a  round  hole  by  much  scouring 
and  attrition  in  the  rock,  and  is  stronger  and  greater 
in  that  hole  than  any  other  occupant  can  be.  The 
"  sphere  is  filled,"  and  what  more  would  you  have  ? 
There  is  an  excess  of  little  great  men,  who  have 
managed  by  much  grinding  and  abrasion  to  wear  a 
hole  in  the  rock,  into  which  they  fit  with  surprising 
accuracy.  They  are  great  within  their  own  dominion  ; 
but  how  small  the  moment  they  are  pushed  beyond  it ! 
No  violence  can  be  too  harsh  which  breaks  off  the  petty 
limitations  of  one's  life.  The  valley  through  which 
men  are  called  to  walk  ought  to  widen  every  day, 
until  some  grand  outlook  is  gained.  It  is  not  the 
gentle  south-wind,  but  the  blast  of  the  hurricane  which 


44  I. n( JUSTS  AND   WILD  HONEY. 

makes  them  move  on.  And  when  one  is  violently 
wrenched  out  of  his  place,  let  him  accept  it  as  a 
Divine  interposition  to  save  him  from  eternal  littleness. 
There  is  that  spring  yonder  under  the  shelving  rock, 
having  a  trace  of  sulphur  and  iron,  and  possibly,  some 
other  qualities  for  physical  regeneration.  For  two 
hours  at  mid-day  there  has  been  a  succession  of  birds 
and  beasts  to  its  waters.  Curiously  enough,  there  has 
been  no  collision ;  but  every  kind  in  its  own  order. 
The  roe,  with  a  half-grown  fawn,  comes  down  early  in 
the  morning;  and  as  the  heat  of  mid-day  inert 
coveys  of  quails,  led  by  the  parent-birds,  emerge  from 
the  thickets,  and  trail  along  to  the  spring.  Later  still, 
orioles,  thrushes,  robins,  linnets,  and  a  wild  mocking 
bird  without  any  name,  go  down  not  only  to  drink, 
but  to  lave  in  the  waters.  You  may  watch  for  days 
and  months,  but  you  will  never  see  the  hawk  or  the 
crow,  or  any  unclean  bird  do  this  thing.  But  birds 
of  song,  which  have  neither  hooked  beaks  nor  talons, 
sprinkle  themselves  with  purifying  waters,  and  are 
innocent  of  all  violence  and  blood.  The  spring  is  not 
only  a  tonic,  but  it  serves  to  take  the  conceit  out  of  a 
ponderous  man  who  has  been  putting  on  the  airs  of 
wisdom  in  the  woods.  He,  too,  went  down  on  "all- 


LOCUSTS  AND  WILD  HONEY.  45 

fours"  to  drink;  and  such  an  ungraceful  figure  did 
this  counting-house  prince  make,  and  blew  so  like  a 
hippopotamus  backing  out  of  the  ooze  and  mire,  that 
all  the  woods  rang  with  wildest  mirth.  But  a  lad, 
bending  the  visor  of  his  cap,  lifted  the  water  to  his 
mouth,  and  drank  erect  like  one  to  the  manor  born. 
For  the  space  of  half  an  hour  the  great  man  was  as 
humble  as  a  child,  and  there  was  no  more  wisdom  in 
him.  But  the  spirit  of  divination  overtook  him  at 
last ;  with  a  tape  line  he  set  about  measuring  the  girth 
of  the  noblest  redwood  tree  of  the  forest;  and  with 
pencil  in  hand  was  calculating  the  number  of  thousand 
feet  of  inch-boards  it  would  make,  if  cut  up  at  the 
mills  !  If  the  gentle  hamadryad  which,  for  aught  I 
know,  still  dwelleth  in  every  living  tree,  saw  this 
gross  affront,  there  were  utterances  which  were  nigh 
unto  cursing.  Were  the  forests  made  for  no  better 
ends  than  this  sordid  wood-craft  which  hews  down  and 
saws  them  into  deals  for  dry-good  boxes  and  the  count 
ers  of  shop-keepers  ?  There  is  not  one  tree  too  many 
on  this  round  globe ;  and  the  whole  herd  of  wood  crafts 
men  ought  to  be  served  with  notices  to  set  out  a  new 
tree  for  every  one  destroyed,  or  quit  at  once. 

It  is  worth  the  enquiry,  at  what  point  that  tendency 


46  LOCUSTS  AND  WILD  HONEY. 

in  modern  civilization  is  to  be  arrested,  which  is 
hastening  the  world  on  to  barrenness  and  desolation. 
The  sites  of  ruined  cities  are  deserts  often ;  but  rarely 
is  one  overgrown  with  forest  trees ;  as  though  nature 
were  still  in  revolt,  and  had  no  heart  for  renewal, 
where  for  ages  she  has  been  ravaged  and  impoverished 
by  multitudinous  populations.  Observe,  too,  how 
nature  shifts  her  burdens.  The  sand  drifts  to-day  over 
the  foundations  of  the  vastest  cities  of  antiquity. 
But  when  the  great  cycle  of  rest  is  filled  out,  if  so  be 
that  the  old  verdure  is  restored,  what  wastes  may 
there  not  be,  and  what  drifting  sands  over  buried 
cities  in  the  heart  of  this  continent?  What  ravages, 
too,  are  these  new  demons  yet  to  commit  upon  the 
forests,  as  they  go  up  and  down  the  mountain  sides 
with  wheels  of  thunder  and  eyes  of  flame  ?  Are  all  the 
trees  of  the  woods  to  be  offered  up  to  these  new  idols 
of  civilization  ? 

All  sounds  are  musical  in  the  woods,  and  the  far-off 
tinkling  of  a  cow-bell  is  wondrously  grateful  to  the  ear. 
There  is  nothing  marvellous  in  the  sharpened  senses 
of  an  Indian.  This  half-grown  lad  is  already  a  match 
for  the  best  of  them.  There  is  not  a  sound  in  the 
woods,  however  obscure,  that  he  does  not  rightly 


LOCUSTS  AND  WILD  HONEY.  47 

interpret;  and  I  have  more  than  once  been  misled 
by  his  counterfeit  imitations  of  game  birds  and  wild 
animals.  No  Indian  can  reason  from  observation  so 
accurately  as  he  whose  intellect  has  had  the  schooling 
of  nature  grafted  upon  the  discipline  of  books.  The 
sharpest  insight  into  nature  is  never  given  to  the 
savage,  but  to  him  whose  grosser  senses  have  been 
purged,  and  whose  vision  is  clarified  by  some  wisdom 
which  is  let  down  from  above. 

All  healthy  souls  love  the  society  of  trees ;  and  the 
mold  which  feeds  them  is  a  better  fertilizer  of  thought 
than  the  mold  of  many  books.  You  see  the  marks  of 
fires  which  have  swept  along  these  mountain  sides ; 
here  and  there  the  trunk  of  a  redwood  has  been 
streaked  by  a  tongue  of  flame.  But  the  tree  wears  its 
crown  of  eternal  green.  It  is  only  the  dry  sticks  and 
rubbish  which  are  burned  up  to  make  more  room  for 
the  giants;  while  many  noxious  reptiles  have  been 
driven  back  to  their  holes.  Possibly,  the  wood-ticks 
number  some  millions  less.  But  very  little  that  is 
worth  saving  is  consumed. 

We  shall  need  a  regenerating  fire  some  day,  to  do 
for  books  what  is  done  for  the  forests.  May  it  be  a 
hot  one  when  it  comes.  Let  no  dry  sticks  nor  vermin 


LOCUSTS  AND    WILD  IH>NEY. 

escape.  Ninety  in  every  hundred  books  which  have 
got  into  our  libraries  within  the  last  half  century,  will 
fail  to  enlighten  the  world  until  there  is  one  good, 
honest  conflagration.  Something  might  be  gained 
from  the  ashes  of  these  barren  books ;  therefore,  pile 
on  the  rubbish,  and  use  the  poker  freely.  Let  not 
the  fire  go  out  until  some  cords  of  pious  doggerel, 
concocted  in  the  name  of  poetry,  have  been  added 
thereto.  The  giants  will  survive  the  flames ;  but. 
punk-wood,  moths,  and  wood-ticks  will  all  be  gone. 

By  a  noteworthy  coincidence,  when  the  smell  of 
autumn  fruits  comes  up  from  the  valley,  and  the 
grapes  hang  in  clusters  on  the  hillsides,  and  wine 
presses  overflow,  the  last  sign  of  dearth  is  obliterated 
by  the  swelling  of  all  hidden  fountains.  The  earth  is 
not  jubilant  without  water.  The  springs  which  had 
been  lost,  gurgle  in  the  crevices  of  the  rocks,  and 
streaks  of  dampness  are  seen  along  the  trails,  where, 
in  the  early  morning,  little  rivulets  ran  and  interlaced 
and  retired  before  the  sun.  There  will  be  no  rain  for 
weeks.  There  has  been  none  for  months.  The  trees 
by  the  wayside  faint  and  droop  under  the  burden  of 
heat  and  dust.  Hut  they  know  this  signal  of  the 
coming  rain.  The  fountains  below  seem  to  know, 


LOCUSTS  AND   WILD  HONEY.  49 

•> 

also,  at  what  time  the  fountains  above  are  to  be 
unsealed  ;  and  these  pulsing  streams  are  the  answering 
signal.  Shorter  days  and  diminished  solar  evaporation 
will  answer  as  a  partial  clearing  up  of  the  mystery. 
But  if  the  profoundest  truth  has  not  yet  been  touched, 
suppose,  oh  philosopher  of  many  books  and  many 
doubts,  that  you  let  your  grapnel  into  the  depths  for 
it  ?  Only  be  sure  that  your  line  is  long  enough,  and 
that  you  bring  no  more  rubbish  to  the  surface.  There 
is  more  truth  above  ground  than  most  of  us  will 
master.  And  we  stumble  over  it  in  field  and  forest, 
like  luckless  treasure  hunters;  when  a  ringing  blow 
upon  the  dull  rock  would  reveal  filaments  of  gold,  or 
the  glancing  light  of  crystals.  There  are  some  truths, 
also,  whose  insufferable  light  we  cannot  bear.  They 
must  be  shaded  off,  like  half  tints  at  set  of  sun.  And 
if  any  prophet  coming  out  of  the  wilderness  shall  dare 
to  tell  more,  let  him  eat  his  locusts  and  wild  honey 
first,  for  he  cannot  tell  whether  he  will  be  crowned  or 
stoned. 


A  WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO. 


A  WEEK   IN   MENDOCINO. 


IF  one  is  in  robust  health  and  a  vigorous  trencher 
man,  who  is  there  on  the  earth,  in  these  degenerate 
times,  to  congratulate  him  on  such  good  fortune  ? 
But  no  sooner  is  there  a  gastric  revolt  at  the  diabolical 
inventions  of  some  high-priestess  of  the  kitchen,  with 
a  growing  cadaverousness,  than  every  friend  is  ready 
with  an  ominous  warning.  When  we  publish  a  list  of 
the  patent  medicines  recommended,  the  world  will 
know  how  many  disinterested  friends  we  have.  Just 
now,  the  earth  cure  is  all-potent.  Try  it  in  any  shape 
you  like — as  a  mud  bath,  a  powder,  a  poultice,  or  an 
honest  bed  at  mid-day — and  this  chemistry  of  earth 
and  sun  will  work  wonders.  Are  we  not  getting  back 
to  first  principles  ?  You  talk  of  the  shaking  up  which 
religious  dogmas  have  suffered  within  the  last  half- 
century  :  what  is  there  of  all  the  medical  theories  of 
the  last  fifteen  hundred  years  which  now  goes  unchal 
lenged  ? 

Yosemite  has  been  a  little  overdone  of  late.      The 


54  A    WEEK  IN  MENDOCINo. 

>e.i  shore  and  the  springs  arc  dreadfully  haunted  by 
the  young  lady  in  rustic  hat,  garnished  with  pea-green 
ribbon,  and  who  either  writes  poetry,  or  reads  the 
latest  love  story.  There  is  comfort  in  the  fact  that 
the  territory  of  this  State  is  not  more  than  half 
explored,  and  is  not  likely  to  be  for  some  time  to 
come.  There  are  reaches  equal  to  a  degree  of 
latitude  untrodden,  as  yet,  by  the  foot  of  the  tourist, 
and  where  the  clanking  of  the  surveyor's  chain  and 
rods  has  never  been  heard ;  and  some  of  these  you 
may  find  within  two  hundred  miles  of  San  Francisco. 
Going  still  farther,  there  are  vales  where  a  white  man 
IWf,  till  recently,  something  of  a  curiosity.  It  is 
interesting  to  find  a  country  where  morganatic  mar 
riages  are  in  high  repute.  The  red-headed  lumber 
man's  cross-cut  saw  would  not,  by  this  arrangement, 
descend  to  his  children ;  nor  would  an  old  hunter's 
powder-horn  and  ancient  rifle,  by  the  same  prudential 
forethought,  be  handed  down  to  some  little  vagabond 
half-breeds. 

In  twenty-four  hours  one  may  be  set  down  in  the 
wildest  part  of  Mendocino  County.  We  selected 
Anderson  Valley,  on  the  head-waters  of  the  Novarm 
River,  not  so  much  for  its  wildness  as  because  it  was 


A   WEEK  IN  MENDOGINO.  55 

the  most  accessible  spot  unfrequented  by  the  tourist. 
It  will  be  hard  to  miss  the  Russian  River  Valley  in 
getting  there,  and  harder  still,  not  to  linger  for  a  day 
or  two  to  look  at  such  pictures  as  no  artist  has  quite 
succeeded  in  putting  on  to  his  canvas. 

There  was  the  mid-day  repose  of  St.  Helena,  taking 
on  a  royal  purple  as  the  day  advanced  ;  the  droning 
sound  of  the  reapers  in  the  valley,  as  the  rippling 
wheat  bowed  to  a  sort  of  rural  song  of  Old  Hundred ; 
and  the  very  cattle,  which,  for  aught  T  know,  have 
figured  in  a  dozen  pictures,  standing  under  the  trees, 
with  their  identical  tails  over  their  backs.  Even  the 
great  fields  of  corn,  which  rustled  and  snapped  under  a 
midsummer  sun,  were  toned  a  little  by  the  long  column 
of  mellow  dust  which  spun  from  the  stage-wheels 
and  trailed  for  a  mile  in  the  rear.  The  artists  caution 
against  too  much  green  in  a  picture,  and  so  this  brown 
pigment  was  needed  to  give  the  best  effect ;  and  there 
was  no  lack  of  material  to  "  lay  it  on  "  liberally,  any 
where  in  that  region.  With  the  dropping  down  of  the 
sun  behind  the  low  hills  on  the  west,  the  shadows  fell 
aslant  the  valley,  and  light  and  shade  melted  together 
into  the  soft  twilight.  It  might  have  been  a  favorable 
time  for  sentiment.  But  just  then  the  stage-coach 


: 


56  A    WEEK  IN  MENDOC1NO. 

rounded  a  low  hillock,  and  a  farm-house  was  brought 
suddenly  into  the  foreground.  A  cosset,  a  flock  of 
geese,  a  windmill  moving  its  fans  indolently  to  the 
breath  of  the  west  wind,  a  dozen  ruminating  cows — 
what  more  of  pastoral  simplicity  would  you  have  for 
the  fringe  of  such  a  landscape?  Hut  you  see  it  was 
slightly  overdone.  The  stout  young  woman  milking 
the  roan  cow  rather  heightened  the  effect,  to  be  sure. 
She  really  ought  to  have  been  there.  But  did  any 
feminine  mortal  ever  administer  such  a  kick  to  the 
broad  sides  of  a  cow  before  ?  There  was  a  dull  thud, 
a  quadru pedal  humping,  an  undulation  along  the  spine 
of  that  cow — and  the  stage:coach  was  out  of  sight. 
O,  for  the  brawn  and  muscle  to  administer  such  a 
kick  !  It  was  more  gymnastic  than  esthetic,  more 
realistic  than  poetical.  You  will  never  find  Arcadia 
where  such  a  powerful  feminine  battery  is  set  in 
motion  on  so  slight  a  provocation.  A  cow  might 
survive;  but  you  need  not  describe  the  fate  of  any 
man  on  wh€tfivsuch  a  force  were  expended.  And 
seeing  that  so  large  x  part  of  this  world  needs  a 
healthy  kicking,  more  is  the  pity  that  there  should  have 
been  such  a  needless  expenditure  of  force.  By  what 
mental  law  are  -rand  and  ridiculous  scenes  associated 


A   WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO.  57 

together  ?  I  cannot  summon  the  towering  majesty  of 
St.  Helena,  the  golden  ripple  of  the  harvest  fields,  the 
receding  valley,  softened  by  the  twilight,  but  ever  in 
the  foreground  is  this  kicking  milkmaid  and  that 
unfortunate  cow.  If  a  house-painter  had  dabbed  his 
brush  of  green  paint  on  your  Van  Dyke,  you  might  be 
stunned  by  this  very  audacity,  and  turn  your  pet 
picture  to  the  wall.  But  the  house-painter  and  Van 
Dyke  would  from  that  time  forth  be  associated 
together.  So  I  turn  this  picture  to  the  wall,  only 
wishing  that  the  kicking  milkmaid  and  St.  Helena  had 
been  a  thousand  miles  apart. 

The  Russian  River  Valley  "  pinches  out "  at 
Cloverdale,  a  pretty  little  town,  set  down  in  a  bowl 
with  a  very  large  rim — so  large,  that  unless  new  life 
should  be  infused  into  the  town,  it  will  not  be  likely 
to  slop  over.  Thence,  you  reach  the  head  of  Anderson 
Valley,  by  a  jaunt  of  thirty-two  miles,  in  a  northwest 
erly  direction,  over  a  series  of  low  mountain  ridges, 
and  through  canyons,  sometimes  widening  out  into 
"  potreros "  large  enough  for  a  cattle  ranch,  and 
handsome  enough  for  a  gentleman's  country-seat. 
Here  the  affluents  of  the  Novarro  River  are  drawn 
together  like  threads  of  lace ;  and  the  first  trout 


58  A    WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO. 

stream  leaps  and  eddies  in  the  deep  defiles  on  its  way 
to  the  ocean.  There  is  no  use  of  fumbling  in  an 
outside  pocket  for  fish-hooks.  The  stream  has  a  fishy 
look ;  but  that  band  of  rancheria  Indians,  who  have 
gone  into  summer  camp  on  a  sand-bar,  will  settle  the 
trout  question  for  the  next  ten  miles.  They  pop  their 
heads  out  of  a  round  hole  in  one  of  the  wigwams  like 
prairie  dogs,  and  seem  to  stand  on  their  hind  legs, 
with  the  others  pendent,  as  if  just  going  to  bark. 
These  are  the  aboriginal  Gypsies,  fortunate  rascals, 
who  pay  no  house-rent,  who  want  nothing  but  what 
they  can  steal,  or  what  can  be  got  from  the  brawling 
stream,  or  the  wooded  slopes  of  the  adjacent  hills. 

These  funnel-shaped  willow  baskets,  lodged  here 
and  there  along  the  banks,  are  the  salmon  traps  of  the 
Indians,  which  have  done  duty  until  the  spring  run 
was  over.  When  the  salmon  has  once  set  his 
head  up  stream,  he  never  turns  it  down  again  until  he 
has  reached  the  extreme  limits  of  his  journey  and 
accomplished  his  destiny.  The  Indians  understand 
this  ;  and  these  long  willow  funnels,  with  a  bell-shaped 
mouth,  are  laid  down  in  the  spring — a  clumsy  con 
trivance  to  be  sure;  but  the  salmon  enters  and  pushes 
his  way  on,  while  this  willow  cylinder  contracts  until 


A    WEEK  AV  MENDOCINO.  59 

it  closes  to  a  small  nozzle.  There  is  daylight  ahead ; 
the  stubborn  fish  will  not  back  down,  and  he  cannot 
"move  on."  When  an  Indian  gets  hungry,  he  pulls 
up  this  willow  trap,  runs  a  spit  through  his  fish,  holds 
him  over  the  fire  a  little  while — and  his  dinner  is 
ready. 

There  is  no  fish  story  which  one  may  not  believe 
when  in  a  gentle  mood.  And  thus,  when  farther 
down  the  stream,  a  settler  showed  us  a  wooden  fork 
such  as  is  used  to  load  gavels  of  grain,  with  which,  in 
less  than  an  hour,  he  pitched  out  of  this  same  stream 
a  wagon-load  of  salmon — why  should  we  doubt  his 
veracity?  No  lover  of  the  gentle  art  is  ever  skeptical 
about  the  truth  of  a  fish  story.  Faith  and  good  luck 
go  together.  How  was  our  faith  rewarded  soon  after 
ward,  when,  taking  a  "  cut-off,"  at  the  first  cast  under 
a  shelving  rock,  a  half-pound  trout  was  landed  !  It 
was  a  grasshopper  bait,  and  another  grasshopper  had 
to  be  run  down  before  another  cast.  It  is  wonderful 
what  jumps  this  insect  will  make  when  he  is  wanted  for 
bait,  and  the  run  is  up  the  hill  !  Another  trout 
snapped  illusively,  and  we  had  him — larger  by  a 
quarter  of  a  pound  than  the  first.  It  was  getting 
interesting  !  No  doubt  the  settler  pitched  out  a  load 


60  A    WEEK  IN  MENDOCINo. 

of  salmon  with  a  wooden  fork.  A  kingdom  for  a 
grasshopper  !  There  they  go  in  all  directions — and 
the  rascals  have  wings  !  The  clumsy  stage-wagon  is 
creeping  far  up  the  hill.  A  beetle  is  tried ;  it  won't 
do — no  decent  trout  ever  swallowed  a  beetle.  A 
dozen  splendid  game  fish  were  left  in  that  swirl  under 
the  rock.  Was  there  too  much  faith  in  that  wooden 
fork  story,  or  not  enough  ?  There  was  a  hitch  some 
where.  But  it  was  all  right  when  the  passengers  dined 
that  day  on  fried  bacon,  and  we  on  mountain  trout. 
If  the  grasshoppers  had  not  been  too  lively,  there 
would  have  been  trout  for  all. 

Anderson  Valley  is  about  eighteen  miles  long,  and 
half  to  three-fourths  of  a  mile  wide.  The  hills  on  the 
left  are  belted  with  a  heavy  growth  of  redwood,  in  fine 
contrast  with  the  treeless  hills  on  the  right,  covered 
with  a  heavy  crop  of  wild  oats,  all  golden-hued  in 
the  August  sun.  The  farms  extend  across  the  valley, 
taking  a  portion  of  the  hills  on  either  side.  There 
had  not  been  a  Government  survey  made  in  the  valley, 
but  every  man  was  in  possession  of  his  own,  and  did 
not  covet  his  neighbor's.  Land-stealing  requires  a 
degree  of  energetic  rascality  and  enterprise  wholly 
wanting  here.  So  near,  and  yet  so  remote  !  It  is  as 


A    WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO.  61 

if  one  had  gone  a  two-days'  journey,  and  had  somehow 
managed  to  get  three  thousand  miles  away,  I  heard 
of  a  man  in  the  valley  who  took  a  newspaper,  and 
was  disposed  to  sympathize  with  him  in  his  misfortune. 
Why  should  the  spray  of  one  of  the  dirty  surges  of  the 
outside  world  break  over  into  Arcadia?  Every  body 
had  enough,  and  nobody  had  anything  in  particular  to 
do.  The  dwellings  had  mud-and-stick  chimneys  on 
the  outside,  and  an  occasional  bake-oven  garnished 
the  back  yard.  At  the  little  tavern,  such  vegetables  as 
strangers  "  hankered  for  "  were  procured  at  the  coast 
— a  distance  of  twenty-six  miles.  An  old  man — he 
might  have  been  seventy,  with  a  margin  of  twenty 
years — had  heard  of  the  rebellion,  and  lamented  the 
abolition  of  slavery — a  mischief  which  he  attributed 
to  a  few  fanatics.  The  world  would  never  get  on 
smoothly  until  the  institution  of  the  patriarchs  had 
been  restored. 

Oh,  venerable  friend,  dwelling  in  Arcadia !  there  is 
much  broken  pottery  in  this  world  which  is  past  all 
mending;  and  more  which  is  awaiting  its  turn  to  go 
into  the  rubbish  heap.  All  that  was  discovered  in  the 
interior  of  a  Western  mound  was  a  few  fragments  of 
earthenware ;  for  the  rest,  Time  had  beaten  it  all 


62  A    WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO. 

back  to  the  dust.  The  images,  whether  of  brass, 
wood,  or  stone,  could  not  be  put  together  by  any  of 
the  cohesive  arts  of  our  time.  It  is  appointed  for 
some  men  to  go  through  the  world,  club  in  hand,  and 
to  break  much  of  the  world's  crockery  as  they  go.  We 
may  not  altogether  like  them.  But  observe  that  the 
men  who  are  stoned  by  one  generation  are  canoni/ed 
by  the  next.  There  was  the  great  ebony  image  set  up 
and  so  long  worshipped  by  the  people  of  this  country. 
How  many  sleek,  fat  doctors  climbed  into  their  pulpits 
of  a  Sunday,  to  expatiate  on  the  scriptural  beauties  of 
this  image,  and  the  duty  of  reverencing  it  as  something 
set  up  and  continued  by  Divine  authority  !  It  took 
some  whacking  blows  to  bring  that  ebony  idol  down; 
but  what  a  world  of  hypocrisy,  cruelty  and  lies  went 
into  the  dust  with  it.  Was  there  ever  a  reformer — a 
genuine  image-breaker — who  did  not,  at  one  time  or 
another,  make  the  world  howl  with  rage  and  pain  ? 
Now,  truth  is  on  eternal  foundations,  and  does  not 
suffer,  in  the  long  run,  by  the  world's  questionings  or 
buflettings.  But  a  consecrated  falsehood — whether 
sacerdotal,  political,  or  social — is  some  day  smitten, 
as  the  giant  of  old,  in  the  forehead,  and  falls  head 
long.  After  all,  it  is  by  revolution  that  the  world 


A    WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO.  63 

makes  most  of  its  progress.  It  is  a  violent  and  often 
disorderly  going  out  of  an  old  and  dead  condition  by 
the  regenerating  power,  not  of  a  new  truth,  but  of  an 
old  one  dug  out  of  the  rubbish,  and  freshly  applied  to 
the  conscience  of  the  world.  How  many  truths  to-day 
lie  buried,  which,  if  dug  up,  would  set  the  world  in  an 
uproar  !  The  image-breaker  often  heralds  a  revolu 
tion.  He  overturns  the  idol,  of  whatever  sort  it  is, 
letting  the  light  into  some  consecrated  falsehood — not 
gently,  but  very  rudely,  and  with  a  shocking  disregard 
of  good  manners,  as  many  affirm.  This  rough-shod 
evangel,  with  the  rasping  voice,  and  angular  features, 
and  pungent  words — we  neither  like  him  nor  his  new 
gospel  at  first.  But  he  improves  on  acquaintance,  and 
some  day  we  begin  to  doubt  whether  he  really  does 
deserve  eternal  burning. 

The  world  is  full  of  cant ;  it  infects  our  common 
speech.  The  odor  of  sanctity  and  the  form  of  sound 
words  are  no  nearer  the  living  spirit  than  are  those 
petrifactions  which  present  an  outline  of  men,  but 
never  again  pulsate  with  life.  Once  in  every  half 
a  century  it  is  needful  that  the  image-breaker  should 
come  along  and  knock  on  the  head  the  brainless 
images  of  cant.  The  sturdy  man  of  truthful  and 


64  A    WEEK  IN  MENDOCfNO. 

resolute  speech !  How  irreverent  and  impious  he  is! 
He  makes  the  timid  hold  their  breath,  lest  he  should 
break  something  that  he  ought  not  to  touch.  What  has 
he  done,  after  all,  but  to  teach  men  and  women  to  be 
more  truthful,  more  courageous,  and  less  in  love  with 
shams. 

At  the  close,  of  a  little  "  exhortation,"  something 
like  this,  the  old  man  said — rather  dogmatically,  I 
thought :  '*  Stranger,  them  sentiments  of  yourn  won't 
do  for  this  settlement."  No  doubt  he  was  right. 
They  won't  do  for  for  any  settlement  where  they  build 
mud-and-stick  chimneys  on  the  outside  of  houses,  and 
fry  meat  within. 

It  is  good  to  get  into  a  forest  where  there  is  not  a 
mark  of  the  woodman's  axe.  The  redwood,  is  after 
all,  one  of  the  handsomest  coniferous  trees  in  the 
world.  It  grows  only  in  a  good  soil  and  a  moist 
climate.  There  may  be  larger  trees  of  the  sequoia 
family  in  the  Calaveras  group,  but  that  presumption 
will  bear  questioning.  A  guide  offered  to  take  us  to 
a  group  of  trees,  distant  about  a  day's  ride,  the 
largest  of  which  he  affirmed  was  seventy-five  feet  in 
circumference,  and  not  less  than  two  hundred  and 
sixty  feet  high.  Larger  trees  than  this  are  reported  in 


A   WEEK  AV  MENDOC1NO.  65 

the  Coast  Range ;  but  we  have  never  yet  seen  a  red 
wood  which  measured  over  fifty  feet  in  circumference, 
nor  can  any  considerable  tree  of  this  species  be  found 
beyond  the  region  of  sandstone  and  the  belt  of  coast 
fogs. 

It  is  curious  to  note  tree  and  tribal  limitations.  The 
oak  and  the  redwood  do  not  associate  together,  but 
the  madrono  is  the  friend  of  both.  The  line  of  red 
wood  limits  the  habitation  of  the  ground  squirrel,  and 
within  that  line  his  half-brother,  the  wood  squirrel, 
arches  his  tail  in  the  overhanging  boughs,  and  barks 
just  when  the  charge  is  out  of  your  gun,  with  surpris 
ing  impudence.  There  is  the  dominion  of  trees  and 
animals  older  and  better  defined  than  any  law  of 
boundaries  which  has  yet  got  into  our  statute-books. 
Who  knows  but  races  of  men  have  overleaped  bound 
aries  of  Divine  ordination,  and  so  must  struggle  with 
adverse  fate  towards  nothing  more  hopeful  than 
extinction.  The  black  man  of  the  tropics  planted 
near  the  North  Pole,  has  the  grin  all  taken  out  of  him, 
and  there  is  nothing  but  a  frigid  chatter  left.  There 
is  the  Indian  of  the  great  central  plains.  Have  we 
got  into  his  country,  or  has  he  got  into  ours  ?  There 
is  some  confusion  of  boundaries  ;  and  the  locomotive, 


66  A    WEEK  IN  MENDUCINO. 

that  demon  of  modern  civilixation,  is  tracing  new 
boundaries  with  a  trail  of  fire.  It  is  possible  to  put 
one's  finger  upon  the  weak  link  in  the  logic  that  what 
is  bad  for  the  Indian  is  good  for  the  white  man. 

That  gopher  snake  just  passed  on  the  trail,  with  a 
young  rabbit  half  swallowed,  illustrates  near  enough 
how  one-half  of  the  world  is  trying  to  swallow  the  other. 
Observe,  too,  that  provision  of  nature,  by  which  game 
is  swallowed  larger  than  the  throat.  It  is  the  smallest 
half  of  the  world,  it  seems,  that  is  trying  to  swallow 
the  largest  half,  with  good  prospect  of  success.  Half 
a  do/en  men  have  located  all  the  redwood  timber 
upon  the  accessible  streams  of  this  county.  Looking 
coastward  along  the  Novarro,  there  is  a  (bain  of  town 
ships  spanning  this  stream  for  fifteen  miles  in  length, 
owned  by  two  men.  You  may  write  down  the  names 
of  twenty  men  who  are  at  this  moment  planning  to 
swallow  all  the  leading  business  interests  of  this  State. 
They  will  elect  Governors  and  Legislators.  It  don't 
matter  that  the  game  is  larger  than  the  throat.  In 
fad,  deglutition  is  already  pretty  well  advanced — as 
far,  at  least,  as  with  the  rabbit  ;  but  with  this  difference. 
that  our  victims  will  be  made  to  grease  themselves. 

If  the  day  is  precedqd  by  three  or  four  hours  of 


A    WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO.  67 

moonlight,  you  will  not  often  find  a  deer  browsing 
after  the  sun  is  up.  His  work  is  done,  and  he  has 
lain  down  in  a  thicket  for  a  morning  nap.  It  was 
kind  of  the  log-driver  to  take  us  to  the  hills  at  the 
faintest  streak  of  dawn.  But  once  there,  he  slipped 
away  by  himself,  and  in  hardly  more  than  half  an  hour 
there  were  three  cracks  of  a  rifle.  He  came  round 
with  no  game.  We  had  seen  none.  It  was  not  so 
very  interesting  to  stand  as  a  sentinel  on  the  hill-tops 
in  the  chill  of  a  gray  morning,  yearning  for  one's 
breakfast,  and  wishing  all  the  deer  were  locked  up  in 
some  canyon  with  a  bottomless  abyss.  A  new  stand 
was  taken,  when  presently  our  friend  pointed  out  the 
line  of  a  deer's  back,  standing  half  hidden  by  a  clump 
of  rocks  of  nearly  the  same  color.  We  must  both  fire 
together,  and  make  a  sure  thing  of  the  game.  There 
was  a  sharp  report,  and  the  deer  jumped  clear  of  the 
rocks  and  disappeared.  Pie  fell  in  his  tracks. 
There  was  a  single  bullet-mark.  But  our  friend 
insisted  that  both  shots  had  taken  effect  in  the  same 
spot.  It  was  a  fawn,  not  more  than  two-thirds  grown, 
and  the  glaze  was  just  coming  over  its  mild,  beseech 
ing  eyes.  We  were  sorry  for  a  moment  that  both 
rifles  had  not  missed.  The  log-driver  shouldered  the 


68  A    WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO. 

game,  but  disclaimed  all  ownership.  A  little  farther 
on  a  dead  buck  was  skewered  over  a  limb,  and  still 
farther  a  buck  and  a  doe  were  suspended  in  the  same 
way.  It  was  a  good  morning's  work.  Every  shot  of 
the  log-driver  had  told.  A  slight  pang  of  remorse  irtl 
succeeded  by  a  little  glow  of  exultation.  Venison  is 
good,  and  a  hungry  man  is  carnivorous.  It  is  a  clear 
case  that  the  taking  of  this  one  deer  is  right.  The 
log-driver  must  satisfy  his  conscience  for  taking  three, 
as  best  he  can.  His  left  eye  had  a  merry  twinkle, 
however,  when,  on  handing  over  our  gun,  he  observed 
that  the  cap  only  had  exploded,  and  that  the  load 
placed  there  on  setting  out  was  still  in  the  rifle  chain 
ber.  Well,  we  got  the  venison,  and  the  log-driver 
told  his  sly  story  with  a  keen  relish,  and  some 
addenda. 

This  Arcadia  is  a  wondrously  human  place,  after 
all.  Borrowing  a  pony  to  ride  up  the  valley  three  or 
four  miles,  night  and  the  hospitality  of  a  neighbor 
overtook  us.  A  mist  settled  down  over  the  valley, 
and  under  the  great  overhanging  trees  not  a  trace  of 
the  road  could  be  seen.  "Only  give  him  the  rein, 
said  the  settler,  "and  the  horse  will  go  straight  home." 
\\  ^avc  him  the  rein.  An  hour,  by  guess,  had  gone 


A   WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO,  69 

by,  and  still  that  pony  was  ambling  along,  snorting 
occasionally  as  the  dry  sticks  broke  suspiciously  in  the 
edge  of  the  woods.  If  a  grizzly  was  there,  his  company 
was  not  wanted.  Another  hour  had  gone  by.  Pray, 
how  long  does  it  take  a  pony  to  amble  over  three  miles 
in  a  pitch-dark  night  ?  Half  an  hour  later,  he  turned 
off  to  the  left,  crossed  the  valley,  and  brought  up  at  a 
fence.  "  Give  him  the  rein,"  was  the  injunction.  He 
had  that,  and  a  vigorous  dig  besides.  In  half  an  hour 
more  he  was  on  the  other  side  of  the  valley,  drawn  up 
at  another  fence.  It  was  too  dark  to  discover  any  house. 
The  true  destination  was  a  small  white  tavern  by  the 
road-side,  and  the  light  of  the  wood  fire  in  the  great 
fire-place  would  certainly  shine  through  the  window. 
The  vagabond  pony  took  the  spur  viciously,  and  went 
off  under  the  trees.  We  were  lost — that  was  certain. 
It  was  getting  toward  midnight.  It  was  clear  that 
this  equine  rascal  was  not  going  home.  He  had 
traveled  at  least  four  hours,  and  was  now,  probably, 
several  miles  outside  the  settlement,  unless  he  had 
been  going  around  in  a  circle.  A  night  in  a  wilder 
ness,  enveloped  in  a  chilling  fog,  the  moisture  of  which 
was  now  dripping  from  the  trees,  with  the  darkness 
too  great  to  discover  when  the  horse  laid  his  ears  back 


70  A    WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO. 

as  a  sign  of  danger,  was  the  best  thing  in  prospect. 
Some  time  afterward,  he  had  evidently  turned  into  a 
field,  and  a  few  minutes  later,  was  in  front  of  a  settler's 
house.  A  ferocious  dog  made  it  useless  to  dismount; 
the  bars  were  jumped — the  diminutive  cob  coming 
down  on  his  knees,  and  a  moment  afterward  bringing 
up  under  the  window  of  a  small  house.  The  window 
went  up  slowly,  in  answer  to  a  strong  midnight  saluta 
tion  ;  and  to  this  day  it  is  not  quite  clear  whether  a 
rifle  barrel,  a  pitchfork,  or  a  hoe-handle  was  protruded 
from  that  window,  or  whether  all  this  was  an  illusion 
born  of  the  darkness  of  the  night. 

"  Well,  stranger,  how  did  you  get  in  here,  and  what 
do  you  want  ?  "  asked  the  keeper  of  this  rural  castle. 

"  I  am  lost ;  you  must  either  let  me  in,  or  come  out 
and  show  me  the  way." 

"  Likely  story  you're  lost  ?  Reckon  that  don't  go 
down  in  this  settlement.  You  ain't  lost  if  you're  here, 
are  you  ?  " 

"  Look  here  :  I  borrowed  Jimson's  pony  to  go  up 
to  Dolman's,  and  started  back  after  night-fall.  Dolman 
said,  'Give  him  the  rein,  and  he  would  go  straight 
back  to  the  tavern.'  I  gave  him  the  rein,  and  he  has 
been  going  for  the  last  four  or  five  hours,  except  when 


or 

3*17X1. 


IN  MENDOGINO, 

he   stopped   two   or  three   times  at  fences,  until   he 
brought  up  here." 

T  think  the  hoe-handle,  or  whatever  it  might  have 
been,  was  slowly  drawn  in.  A  match  was  touched  off 
on  the  casement,  making  about  as  much  light  a  as 
fire-fly.  The  settler,  shading  his  eyes,  threw  a  glimmer 
of  light  on  to  the  neck  of  the  iron-gray  pony  : 

"Yes  ;  that's  Jimson's  pony — that  are  a  fact." 

A  moment  after,  a  tall  figure  glided  out,  as  from  a 
hole  in  the  wall,  and  stood  by  the  horse. 

"  Now,  tell  me,  my  good  friend,  where  I  am,  what 
is  the  hour,  -and  how  to  get  back  to  the  tavern." 

"  Well,  it  mought  be  nigh  onto  twelve  o'clock,  and 
you're  not  more'n  two  miles  from  Jimson's." 

"  I  left  at  seven  o'clock  to  go  down  to  Jimson's, 
about  three  miles.  Where  have  I  been  all  this  time  ? 
If  I  have  been  nearly  five  hours  going  half  of  three 
miles,  how  shall  I  ever  get  back  to  the  tavern  ?  " 

"  Stranger,  you  don't  understand  all  the  ways  of  this 
settlement.  You  see  that's  the  pony  that  the  Jimson 
boys  take  when  they  go  round  courting  the  gals  in  this 
valley.  He  thought  you  wanted  to  go  round  kind  o' 
on  a  lark  ;  and  that  pony,  for  mere  devilment,  had 
just  as  lief  go  a-courting  as  not.  Stopped  out  yonder 


72  A    WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO. 

at  a  fence,  did  he,  and   then   went  across  the   valley, 
and  then  over  to  the  foot-hills?      Well,  he  went  up  to 
Tanwood's  first,  and  being  as  that  did'nt  suit,  expect 
he  went  across  to  Weatherman's — he's  got  a  fine  gal — 
then  he  came  on  down  to  Jennings' — mighty  fine  gal 
there.       He's  been  there  with  the  boys  lots  o'  times." 
"  \Vell,  why  did  the  pony  come  over  here?  " 
"  You  see,  stranger,  I've  got  a  darter,  too." 
"  How  far  has   that  wandering    rascal  carried    me 
since  seven  o'clock  ?  " 

"  Nigh  upon  fifteen  miles — may  be,  twenty ;  and 
he'd  a  gone  all  night,  if  you'd  let  him.  He  ain't  half 
done  the  settlement  yet." 

"  Then  I,  a  middle-aged  man  of  family,  have  been 
carried  round  this  settlement  in  this  fog,  which 
goes  to  the  marrow-bones,  and  under  trees,  to  get  a 
broken  head,  and  on  blind  cross-trails,  for  twenty 
miles  or  so ;  and  have  got  just  half-way  back  ;  and  all 
because  this  pony  is  used  by  the  boys  for  larking  ?  " 

"I  reckon  you've  struck  it,  stranger.  Mus'n't  blame 
that  hoss  too  much.  He  thought  you  was  on  it. 
Now  it's  a  straight  road  down  to  Jimson's.  But  don't 
let  him  turn  to  the  left  below.  Runnel  lives  down 
there,  and  he's  got  a  darter,  too.  She's  a  smart  'un." 


A    WEEK  IN  MENDOCINO.  73 

A  few  minutes  later,  as  if  the  evil  one  was  in  that 
iron-gray,  he  took  the  left-hand  road.  But  he  sprang 
to  the  right,  when  the  rowel  went  into  his  flank, 
carrying  with  it  the  assurance  that  the  game  was  up. 

It  was  past  midnight  when  that  larking  pony  came 
steaming  up  to  the  little  white  tavern.  The  smolder 
ing  wood  fire  threw  a  flickering  light  into  the  porch, 
enough  to  see  that  the  ears  of  the  gamy  little  horse 
were  set  forward  in  a  frolicking  way,  saying  clearly 
enough  :  "  If  you  had  only  given  me  the  rein,  as 
advised,  we  would  have  made  a  night  of  it." 

This  new  Arcadia  is  not  so  dull,  when  once  the 
ways  are  learned.  The  Jimson  boys  affirmed  that  the 
pony  was  just  mean  enough  to  play  such  a  trick  on  a 
stranger.  But  the  old  tavern  loft  rang  with  merriment 
until  the  small  hours  of  the  night.  It  was  moderated 
by  a  motherly  voice  which  came  from  the  foot  of  the 
stairs:  "You  had  better  hush  up.  The  stranger 
knows  all  the  places  where  you've  been  gallivanting 
round  this  settlement." 

When  the  sun  had  just  touched  the  hills  with  a 
morning  glory,  we  were  well  on  the  way  out  of  the 
valley.  Coveys  of  quails  with  half-grown  chicks  were 
coming  out  from  cover.  The  grouse  were  already  at 


74  A    WEEK  IN  MENDOCINo. 

work  in  the  wild  berry  patches  on  the  side  of  the 
mountain — one  or  two  larks  went  before  with  an 
opening  benediction  ;  while  the  glistening  madrono 
shed  its  shower  of  crystals'.  Looking  back,  there  was 
a  thin,  blue  vapor  curling  up  from  the  cabins.  \\V 
were  reconciled  to  the  mud-and-stick  chimneys  on  the 
outside,  with  a  reservation  about  the  fried  meat  within. 
Peace  be  with  the  old  man  who  said  our  speech  would 
not  do  for  that  settlement.  And  long  life  to  the  pony 
that  mistook  our  sober  mission  for  one  of  wooing  and 
frolic  on  a  dark  and  foggy  night. 


UNDER  A  MADRONO. 


UNDER  A   MADRONO. 


JEEHEEBOY,  the  Parsee,  says  that  the  highest  con 
ception  of  heaven  is  a  place  where  there  is  nothing  to 
do.  We  had  found  that  place  under  an  oak,  yesterday, 
and  had  conquered  a  great  peace.  All  the  world  was 
going  right,  for  once,  no  matter  which  way  it  went. 
Rut  opening  one  eye,  the  filagree  of  sunlight,  sifting 
through  the  leaves,  disclosed  hundreds  of  worms 
letting  themselves  down  by  gossamer  cables  toward 
the  earth.  Now  and  then  a  swallow  darted  under  the 
tree,  and  left  a  cable  fluttering  without  ballast  in  the 
breeze.  If  a  worm  is  ambitious  to  plumb  some  part 
of  the  universe,  there  is  no  philosophy  in  this  world 
which  will  insure  perfect  composure,  when  it  is  clear 
that  one's  nose  or  mouth  is  to  be  made  the  "objective 
point."  The  madrono  harbors  no  vagabonds — not  a 
leaf  is  punctured,  and  no  larva  is  deposited  under  its 
bark,  probably  for  the  reason  that  the  outer  rind  is 
thrown  off  every  year.  It  is  not  kingly,  but  it  is  the 
one  undefiled  tree  of  the  forest.  When  its  red  berries 


7s  UNDER  A  MADRONO. 

are  ripe,  the  robins  have  a  thanksgiving-day;  and  the 
shy,  wild  pigeons  dart  among  its  branches,  uncon 
sciously  making  themselves  savory  for  the  spit. 

Little  creepers  of  yerba  bnena — the  sweetest  and 
most  consoling  of  all  herbs — interlace  underneath  the 
tree;  and,  within  sight,  the  dandelion  blooms,  and 
perfects  its  juices  for  some  torpid  liver;  while  under  the 
fence  the  wild  sage  puts  forth  its  gray  leaves — gathering 
subtile  influences  from  air  and  earth  to  give  increase 
of  wisdom  and  longevity.  If  the  motherly  old 
prophetess  of  other  days — she  who  had  such  faith  in 
(iod  and  simples — would  come  this  way,  she  mi-ht 
gather  herbs  enough  to  cure  no  small  part  of  this 
disordered  world. 

Take  it  all  in  all,  one  may  go  a  long  way  and  not 
find  another  more  perfect  landscape.  The  dim, 
encircling  mountains,  one  with  the  ragged  edges  of  an 
extinct  volcano  still  visible  ;  the  warm  hill-sides,  where 
vine,  and  fig,  and  olive  blend ;  the  natural  park,  in 
the  foreground,  begirt  with  clear  waters  which  break 
through  a  canyon  above — the  home  of  trout,  grown 
too  cunning  for  the  hook,  except  on  cloudy  days  ;  the 
line  of  perpetual  green  which  the  rivulet  carries  a  mile 
farther  down,  and  loses  it  at  the  fretting  shore-line ; 


UNDER  A  MADRONO.  7g 

the  village  with  its  smart  obtrusiveness  toned  by 
distance  ;  and  the  infinite  reach  of  the  ocean  beyond — 
these  all  enter  into  the  composition.  Well,  if  one  has 
a  "  stake  in  the  soil,"  just  here,  what  is  the  harm  in 
coming  to  drive  it  a  little  once  a  year,  and  to  enjoy 
the  luxury  of  wiping  out  such  scores  as  are  run  up  on 
the  debit  side  of  the  account  ?  Farming  for  dividends 
is  a  prosy  business ;  but  farming  with  a  discount,  may 
have  a  world  of  sentiment  in  it. 

Have  you  quite  answered  the  question  yet,  whether 
the  instinct  of  certain  animals  is  not  reason  ?  Here 
are  a  dozen  quadrupedal  friends  that  can  demonstrate 
the  fact  that  they  have  something  more  than  instinct. 
There  is  that  honest  old  roan  horse  coming  from 
the  side-hill  for  his  lump  of  sugar.  He  knows  well 
enough  that  he  is  not  entitled  to  it  now.  He  is  only 
coming  to  try  his  chances.  But  give  him  an  hour 
under  the  saddle,  then  turn  him  out  and  see  if  he  will 
not  get  it.  Forgetting  once  to  give  him  his  parting 
lump,  he  came  back  again  at  midnight  from  the  field, 
and,  thrusting  his  head  into  an  open  window,  whinnied 
such  a  blast  that  every  inmate  of  the  farm-house 
bolted  from  bed.  He  got  his  sugar,  but  with  a  look 
of  injured  innocence ;  and  ever  since  has  been  dealt 


8o  UNDER  A  MADRONO. 

with  in  good  faith.  Charley  is  something  of  a  sports 
man,  in  his  way.  In  the  autumn  you  have  only  to  get 
on  his  back  with  a  gun,  and  he  trudges  off  to  places 
where  the  quails  come  out  from  covert  by  hundreds 
into  the  little  openings  in  the  chapparal.  The  horse 
will  edge  up  very  near  to  them ;  when  he  drops 
his  head,  that  is  his  signal  to  fire.  If  lithe  enough, 
you  will  pick  them  up  without  leaving  the  saddle.  If 
you  get  down  to  gather  up  the  game  he  will  wait.  He 
will  go  on  in  his  own  way,  and  discover  the  birds  long 
before  you  can,  dropping  his  head  as  a  signal  at  just 
the  right  moment.  You  may  call  this  horse  sense,  but 
it  is  horse-reason — so  near  akin  to  human  reason 
that  there  might  be  some  trouble  in  tracing  the 
dividing-line.  So  much  for  this  old  cob,  who  smuggles 
his  honest  head  under  your  coat  for  sugar,  knowing 
well  enough  that  he  has  not  earned  it. 

Another  horse,  now  dead,  and  happy,  I  hope,  in 
the  other  world,  stopped  one  dark  night,  when  half 
way  down  a  steep  and  dangerous  hill.  There  was  a 
neighbor,  with  wife  and  babies,  in  the  carriage.  The 
horse  would  not  budge  an  inch — not  under  the  whip 
—but  turned  his  head  round,  declaring,  as  plainly  as 
a  horse  could,  that  there  was  danger.  The  hold-back 


UNDER  A   MADRONO.  81 

straps  had  broken,  and  the  pressure  of  the  carriage 
against  his  haunches,  which  sustained  the  entire  load 
from  the  top  of  the  hill,  had  started  the  blood  cruelly; 
yet  there  he  stood,  resolutely  holding  back  wife  and 
babies  from  destruction — choosing  even  to  suffer  the 
indignities  of  the  lash,  rather  than  that  injury  should 
come  to  one  of  his  precious  charge  !  Did  that  horse 
have  reason  ?  I  rather  think  so ;  and  that  he  only 
needed  articulation  to  have  made  a  remonstrance 
quite  as  much  to  the  point  as  that  memorable  one 
made  by  Balaam's  ass. 

There  is  that  great  mastiff,  yawning  so  lazily,  with 
power  to  hold  an  ox  at  his  will,  or  to  throttle  a  man. 
But  no  man  could  abuse  him  as  that  little  child  does 
every  day.  He  understands  well  enough  that  that 
lump  of  animated  dough  has  not  arrived  at  years  of 
discretion,  and  so  he  submits  to  all  manner  of 
cruelties  with  perfect  patience.  How,  with  mere 
instinct,  does  he  find  out  that  this  child  is  not  yet  a 
"  moral  agent,"  and  that  all  these  pinchings,  and 
pluckings,  and  brandings  with  a  hot  poker  are  the 
irresponsible  freaks  of  the  young  rascal,  who  can  get 
off  harmless  by  pleading  the  Baby  Act  ?  This  honest 
dog  would  die  for  that  little  child,  who  abuses  him 


82  UNDER  A  MADRONO. 

every  day.  But.  let  a  "  Greaser"  come  to  take  so 
much  as  one  Brahma  pullet  from  the  roost,  and  he  has 
him  by  the  throat.  Does  instinct  account  for  this 
clear  perception  of  right  and  wrong  ? 

Some  clever  ways  he  has,  also,  of  winning  favor. 
He  has  got  it  into  his  head  that  a  certain  black  cat, 
that  sleeps  in  any  little  patch  of  sunlight  on  the 
kitchen-floor,  is  a  nuisance,  and  he  has  taken  a 
contract  to  abate  it.  But,  at  the  same  time,  he  is  on 
such  friendly  terms  with  pussy  that  he  would  not  hurt 
her  for  the  world.  Now  a  cat  knows,  by  instinct,  how 
to  carry  her  kittens,  and  not  hurt  them.  But  how  did 
this  dog  find  out  that  a  cat  can  be  carried  safely  and 
comfortably  by  the  nape  of  her  neck  ?  Very  gently 
he  takes  up  pussy  thus  by  her  neck,  carries  her  off  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  or  so  from  the  farm-house,  sets  her 
down,  and  then  comes  back  and  balances  the  account 
with  a  crust  of  bread,  or  any  odd  fragment  of  meat, 
by  way  of  lunch.  On  one  occasion,  puss  got  back  to 
the  house  before  him.  It  bothered  him  that  the  case 
amounted  so  nearly  to  a  "  breach  of  contract." 
Taking  puss  once  more  by  the  neck,  he  carried  her 
across  a  creek,  and,  setting  her  down  on  the  other 
side,  returned,  with  an  air  of  profound  satisfaction. 


UNDER  A  MADRONO.  83 

He  got  an  extra  lunch  that  day.  But  how  did  the 
dog  know  that  a  cat  has  a  mortal  aversion  to  crossing 
a  stream  of  water?  If  that  dog  had  no  more  than 
mere  instinct,  pray,  what  is  reason  ? 

His  "predecessor"  was  a  foolish  dog,  not  more 
than  "  half-witted."  But  even  his  canine  idiocy  gave 
way  to  gleams  of  reason.  He  became  an  expert  at 
driving  cattle  which  trespassed  on  the  fajm.  If  the 
herd  scattered,  he  singled  out  the  leader,  laid  hold  of 
his  tail,  and  steered  him  as  well  as  a  yachtman  could 
steer  his  craft  through  an  intricate  channel.  After 
two  or  three  steers  had  been  piloted  in  this  way,  the 
rest  would  follow  the  leaders.  The  dog  had  hit  upon 
the  most  economical  plan  with  respect  to  time  and  the 
distance  to  be  traversed.  But  one  day,  in  managing 
a  vicious  mustang-ox,  his  patience  was  sorely  tried. 
Jerking  him  suddenly  into  the  right  path,  his  tail 
parted  !  The  whole  bovine  steering-apparatus  had 
given  way,  as  completely  as  a  ship's  rudder  in  a  storm. 
The  dog  never  could  quite  comprehend  the  case.  He 
took  himself  to  his  kennel,  and  would  never  drive 
cattle  afterward.  In  fact,  he  was  never  the  same  dog 
after  that  catastrophe.  Only  instinct,  you  say?  But 
then,  if  there  had  been  an  asylum  for  canine  idiots, 


84  UNDER  A  MADRONO. 

that  dog  would  have  been  entitled  to  a  ticket  of 
admission.  His  exceptional  foolishness  confirms  our 
theory. 

Years  ago,  a  seven-year  old  brought  home  an 
insignificant  little  mongrel — a  mere  puppy — and 
pleaded  so  earnestly  for  its  toleration  that  the 
maternal  judgment  was  quite  overcome.  "  Chip"  was 
always  a  nuisance,  but  understood  more  of  human 
speech  than  any  dog  "  on  record."  If  the  plans  of  the 
day  were  discussed  in  his  hearing,  he  comprehended 
the  principal  movements  to  be  made.  If  the  plan 
excluded  his  company  he  knew  it,  and  stole  away  a 
half-hour  in  advance,  always  selecting  the  right  road, 
and  putting  in  his  mute  plea  for  forbearance  in  just 
the  nick  of  time  to  make  it  available.  Half  a  dozen 
times  was  that  dog  given  away.  Yet  he  always  knew 
the  day  on  which  the  transfer  was  to  be  made;  and  on 
that  particular  day  he  could  never  be  found.  Now, 
does  a  dog  that  understands  the  significance  of  human 
speech,  without  a  motion  or  gesture,  not  only  inter 
preting,  but  connecting  a  series  of  ideas,  so  as  to 
comprehend,  in  advance,  plans  and  movements, 
find  out  all  these  things  by  mere  instinct?  You  may 
limit  and  qualify  the  term,  but  it  is  reason,  after  all. 


UNDER  A  MADRONO.  85 

Train  a  fox  ever  so  much,  and  you  cannot  develop 
anything  in  him  but  the  meanest  instincts.  He  will 
never  be  grateful,  and  never  honest,  nor  can  any  terms 
of  friendship  be  established  with  him.  His  traditional 
cunning  is  a  hateful  dishonesty.  After  nearly  a  year 
of  tuition  on  a  young,  gray  fox,  he  was  never  advanced 
to  any  respectable  degree  of  intelligence.  He  would 
lie  at  the  mouth  of  his  kennel  for  hours  to  confiscate 
any  old  hen  who  happened  to  pass  with  a  brood  of 
chickens,  disdaining,  the  while,  to  seize  any  plump, 
young  rooster  that  passed  within  reach,  because  his 
diabolical  instinct  was  to  work  the  greatest  possible 
amount  of  mischief.  After  making  a  hundred  young 
chickens  orphans,  he  broke  his  chain  one  night  and 
left  for  the  forest.  The  thief  came  back  a  few  nights 
afterward  to  make  more  orphans.  That  gray  pelt 
tacked  up  on  the  rear  of  the  barn  is  his  obituary. 

A  series  of  brilliant  experiments  that  were  to  have 
been  made  on  a  young  rattlesnake  turned  out  not  a 
whit  more  satisfactory.  The  reptile  was  not  "raised" 
just  here,  but  was  presented  by  a  friend.  His  teeth 
were  to  have  been  drawn,  after  which  various  observa 
tions  were  to  have  been  made  concerning  his  tastes 
and  habits,  and  particularly  his  disposition  when  not 


86  UNDER  A   MADRONO. 

provoked.  There  was  a  prospect  of  making  an  honest 
reptile  of  him.  He  was  put  in  an  empty  barrel  for 
the  night.  But  next  morning  two  half-breed  Shang- 
haes  had  him,  one  by  the  tail,  and  the  other  by  the 
head.  He  parted  about  midway,  each  miserable 
rooster  swallowing  his  half,  and  that  without  even  the 
excuse  of  a  morbid  appetite.  Since  that  time  I  have 
never  been  able  to  hate  a  young  rattlesnake  half  as 
much  as  that  detestable  breed  of  Shanghaes. 

If  one  is  not  sick  unto  death,  what  more  effectual 
medication  can  be  found  than  the  sun,  and  the  south 
wind,  and  the  all-embracing  Earth  ?  The  children  of 
the  poor  are  healthy,  because  they  sprout  out  of  the 
very  dirt.  The  sun  dispels  humors,  enriches  the 
blood  ;  and  the  winds  execute  a  sanitary  commission 
for  these  neglected  ones.  They  live,  because  they  are 
of  the  earth,  earthy.  The  experiment  of  training  a 
race  of  attenuated  cherubs  in  the  shade,  and  making 
them  martyrs  to  clean  aprons  and  clean  dickeys  is  a 
failure.  There  is  a  vast  amount  of  post-mortem 
doggerel  that  never  would  have  been  written  if  the 
cherubs  had  only  made  dirt-pies,  and  had  eaten  freely 
of  them.  Observe  the  strong  tendency  of  men,  even 
of  culture,  to  court  the  wildness  and  rude  energy  of 


UNDER  A  MADRONO.  87 

savage  life.  Let  one  sleep  on  the  ground,  in  a  mild 
climate,  for  three  months,  and  even  the  man  who 
reads  Homer  is  content,  often,  to  sleep  there  the  rest 
of  his  life-time.  It  is  better  to  tame  the  savage  rather 
cautiously,  and  with  some  reserve,  for  if  he  be 
eliminated  wholly,  the  best  relations  with  Nature  are 
broken  off.  Evermore  we  are  seeking  for  something 
among  books  and  pictures,  and  in  the  babblings  of 
polite  society,  that  we  do  not  find.  When  the  blood 
is  thin,  and  the  body  has  become  spiritualized,  then  it 
is  easy  to  ascend  to  the  clouds,  as  balloons  go  up,  and 
hold  high  discourse ;  while  the  world,  under  our  feet, 
teeming  with  its  myriad  lives,  pulsating  even  to  the 
smallest  dust,  and  all  glorified,  if  we  will  behold  it,  is 
not  taken  into  fellowship,  its  speech  interpreted, 
nor  its  remedial  forces  marshaled  as  friends,  to  back 
our  halting  and  troubled  humanity.  It  has  taken 
almost  six  thousand  years  to  find  out  that  a  handful 
of  dry  earth  will  heal  the  most  cruel  wound.  In  the 
day  of  our  mortal  hurt  we  do  but  go  back  to  the 
earth,  believing  that  in  the  ages  to  come  we  shall  go 
forth  again,  eternally  renewed. 

There  are  islands  in  the  Pacific  where  birds  and 
beasts,  and  every  living  thing,  are  free  from  fear  of,  or 


88  UNDER  A   MADRONO. 

even  a  suspicion  of  wrong  from,  man.  But  where 
civilization  is  introduced,  there  is  a  bridgeless  gulf 
between  us  and  all  orders  of  existence  beneath. 
There  is  a  half-articulate  protest  coming  up,  that  this 
thing  called  modern  civilization  is  treacherous,  cruel, 
and  dishonest.  For  a  century  its  evangels  have 
proclaimed  its  mission  of  love.  Hut  humanity  has 
wrestled  with  its  own  kind  more  fiercely  than  ever 
before.  It  is  decent  enough  to  kill  each  other,  if 
done  according  to  some  conventional  code.  But  it  is 
vulgar  to  eat  our  enemies  ;  and  so  the  custom,  in 
polite  society,  has  fallen  into  disuse. 

Is  it  a  wonder  that  all  animate  nature  is  accusatory 
and  suspicious?  Little  by  little,  we  win  it  back  to  our 
confidence.  The  birds  that  were  silent  and  moody, 
because  of  our  intrusion,  give,  after  a  while,  little 
fragments  of  song,  and  hop  down  on  the  lower 
branches,  holding  inquisitory  councils.  A  lizard  runs 
along  upon  a  fallen  tree,  each  time  getting  a  little 
nearer :  he  has  the  handsomest  of  eyes,  but  not  a  good 
facial  expression  ;  yet  so  lithe  and  nimble,  and  im 
proves  so  on  acquaintance,  that  we  shall  soon  be 
friends.  Darting  his  tongue  through  an  insect,  he 
comes  a  little  nearer,  as  though  he  would  ask,  "  Do 


UNDER  A  MADRONO.  89 

you  take  your  prey  in  that  way  ?  "  Two  orioles  have 
swung  up  their  hammock  to  the  swaying  branch  of  a 
chestnut-oak.  They  do  not  swing  from  the  madrono, 
because  its  branches  are  too  stiff  and  unyielding. 
They  have  been  in  trouble  for  half  an  hour.  The 
robins  were  in  trouble  earlier  in  the  day ;  a  dozen  oi 
them  went  after  a  butcher-bird,  and  whipped  him 
honestly  and  handsomely.  There  is  a  little  brown 
owl,  sitting  on  a  dry  limb,  not  a  hundred  yards  off.  He 
came  into  the  world  with  a  sort  of  antediluvian  gravity 
that  never  bodes  any  good.  If  the  solemn  bird  could 
only  sing,  he  would  allay  suspicion  at  once.  Never  has 
a  song-bird  a  bloody  beak.  Your  solemn-visaged  men, 
of  frigid  propriety,  out  of  whose  joyless  natures  a  song 
or  a  laugh  never  breaks,  can  thrust  their  talons  into 
human  prey,  if  but  occasion  only  serve,  as  this  owl  will 
into  some  poor  bird  just  at  the  going  down  of  the  sun. 
The  bees  come  and  go  sluggishly,  either  because 
there  is  an  opiate  in  the  sweets  of  the  wild  poppy 
which  flames  on  the  hill-side,  or  because  there  is  no 
winter  season  here  demanding  great  reserves  of  honey. 
Nearly  all  of  them  turn  vagabonds  and  robbers  in  this 
country.  The  line  of  departure  is  toward  a  redwood, 
which  is  dry  at  the  top,  a  knot-hole  evidently  serving 


90  UNDER  A  MADRONO. 

for  ingress  ami  tgttU.  If  their  own  stores  fail  they 
will  go  to  some  tame  hive  and  fight  their  more  honest 
neighbors,  and  plunder  all  their  reserves.  Even  a 
bee-hive  is  no  longer  a  symbol  of  lawful  industry,  since 
the  bees  have  become  knaves,  and  do  not  even  rob  in 
a  chivalrous  way.  But  they,  in  turn,  will  be  despoiled 
by  some  vagabond  who  has  carved  his  initials  on 
every  "  suspected  "  tree  hereabout.  It  is  a  world  of 
reprisals,  after  all.  The  strong  prey  upon  the  weak  ; 
and  they,  in  turn,  after  passing  virtuous  resolutions  of 
indignant  dissent,  spoil  those  who  are  weaker  still. 
It  is  a  hard  necessity.  But  how  can  the  fox  do 
without  the  hare,  the  hawk  without  a  thrush,  or  he 
without  a  beetle,  or  the  beetle  without  his  fly? 
Strong  nations  capture  the  weak  ;  and  there  are  weak 
and  pitiful  races  of  men,  with  no  force  or  vitality  to 
found  nations  and  dynasties.  These  only  wait  to  be 
plucked  up  by  the  stronger,  as  so  much  human 
rubbish  waiting  for  flood  and  flame.  High-breeding 
may  degenerate  races.  Your  thoroughbred  cattle, 
however,  take  the  premiums  at  the  great  fairs  of  the 
world.  It  is  not  necessary  that  the  ancestral  pedigree 
should  be  a  long  one.  But  so  far  as  men  and  women 
are  thoroughbred  with  respect  to  muscle  and  brain, 


UNDER  A  MADRONO.  91 

will  they,  consciously  or  otherwise,  carry  with  them 
the  sceptre  of  dominion  and  conquest.  They  will 
crowd  out  inferior  races,  either  by  sheer  force  or  by 
some  trick  of  diplomacy.  An  Indian  exchanging 
territory  for  blankets,  or  sending  his  arrow  against  an 
iron-clad,  finds  it  a  losing  business  always.  We  write 
him  up  handsomely  in  romances,  but  extinguish  him 
cruelly  with  rifle  and  sabre. 

There  was  a  halo  lingering  about  the  dome  of  the 
old  Mission  Church,  in  the  distance;  its  cross  was 
glorified  just  before  the  sun  rested  its  disk  upon  the 
ocean.  The  hard  outlines  of  the  mountains  softened, 
and  took  on  a  purple  hue ;  the  white  doves  came 
down  out  of  the  clouds,  and  clustered  about  the 
gables;  a  light  flickered  like  a  fire-fly  in  the  light 
house  half  a  league  beyond  the  church,  and  another 
from  a  window  of  the  farm-house  near  by.  That 
skipper,  wide  off,  may  take  his  bearings  from  the  light 
on  the  shore.  But  at  night-fall,  the  wide-spreading 
roof  is  more  hospitable  than  even  this  branching 
madrono.  And  there  is  no  philosophy  that  could  not 
be  improved  by  June-butter,  redolent  of  white  clover, 
with  a  supplement  of  cream  half  an  inch  thick. 


A  DAY  ON  THE  LOS  GATOS. 


A  DAY  ON   THE   LOS  GATOS. 


THE  brightest  stream  which  bubbles  out  of  the 
mountains  in  the  Coast  Range,  and  loses  itself  on  the 
plains  of  Santa  Clara,  ought  to  have  had  a  more 
poetical  name.  Its  feline  etymology  is  probaby 
owing  to  the  fact,  that  as  many  wild  cats  rendezvous 
about  its  head-waters  as  are  congregated  within  the 
same  limits  in  any  place  on  these  mountain-slopes. 
This  superabundance  of  savage  life,  which  so  incon 
tinently  runs  to  white  teeth  and  claws,  is  an  indication 
that  there  is  much  game  in  this  region.  Pussy  likes  a 
good  bill  of  fare,  and  makes  it  up  of  hares,  cotton-tail 
rabbits,  ground-squirrels,  quails,  doves,  and  a  great 
number  of  singing-birds,  not  omitting  an  occasional 
rattlesnake,  which  is  killed  so  deftly  that  there  is  no 
chance  for  a  venomous  bite.  If  the  unlovely  creatures 
had  been  more  industrious  in  this  line,  the  thrushes 
would  have  had  a  better  chance,  and  that  dry,  reedy 
sound  in  the  brush — the  one  drawback  to  the  pleasure 
of  crawling  on  all-fours  through  the  chapparal — 


96  A  DAY  o.V   y///;  LOS  OATns. 

would  not  have  started  a  cold  chill  along  the   spine 
quite  so  often. 

That  little  square-looking  dog,  loaned  by  a  settler 
at  the  foot  of  the  mountain,  with  his  ears  split  in  a 
dozen  places  in  his  encounters  with  these  animals, 
goes  along  for  the  fun  and  excitement  of  another 
clinch  with  his  old  enemy.  The  warfare  is,  after  all, 
conducted  on  scientific  principles.  The  wild  cat  is  as 
strong  as  a  young  tiger,  and  you  see  by  the  depth  of 
the  shoulders  and  the  size  of  the  head,  that  he  will 
fight  terribly.  He  does  not  run  well,  and  cannot  catch 
a  hare  in  any  other  way  than  by  stealth.  The  dog 
runs  him  to  a  tree ;  the  cat  ascends  to  the  highest 
strong  limb,  goes  out  on  that,  and  gets  an  adjustment 
by  which  the  smallest  possible  mark  will  be  presented 
for  a  rifle  or  pistol-shot.  If  you  want  to  do  t la- 
handsome  thing,  let  the  head  alone  ;  for  that  is  well 
defended  by  the  limb  on  which  it  is  resting.  The 
wind  blowing  strong  at  an  oblique  angle  to  your  line, 
will  make  a  difference  of  at  least  an  inch  in  sending 
that  light  ball  180  feet ;  it  will  also  drop  from  a  right 
:iding  line  nearly  two  inches.  Remember,  a 
shrewd  woodsman  never  forgets  these  things,  (letting 
your  margin  adjusted,  plant  the  ball  into  the  shoulder, 


A   DAY  ON  THE  LOS  GATOS.  97 

just  under  the  spine.  He  will  drop  from  the  tree  with 
only  one  foreleg  in  fighting  condition.  The  dog  is  on 
his  back  in  a  second,  and  there  will  be  the  liveliest 
rough-and-tumble  fight  you  have  seen  in  many  a  day. 
Never  mind  the  wild  screams  that  echo  from  the 
canyon.  That  fellow's  time  has  come.  He  will  not 
steal  your  best  game-chicken  out  of  the  top  of  the  tree 
again. 

The  dog  has  won  the  battle ;  but  he  has  got  some 
ugly  scars  along  his  sides  and  flank.  Observe,  that 
over-heated  as  he  is,  he  does  not  rush  into  that  clear 
stream.  He  takes  his  bath  in  that  shallow  spring  with 
a  soft  mud  bottom.  Note  how  he  plasters  himself, 
laying  the  wounded  side  underneath,  and  then,  sitting 
down  on  his  haunches,  buries  all  the  wounded  parts 
in  the  ooze.  That  mud  has  medicinal  properties. 
The  dog  knows  it.  No  physician  could  make  so  good 
a  poultice  for  the  wounds  of  a  cat's  claws  as  this  dog 
has  made  for  himself.  Pray,  if  you  had  been  clawed 
in  that  way  by  either  feline  or  feminine,  would  you 
have  found  anything  at  the  bottom  of  your  book 
philosophy  so  remedial  as  this  dog  has  found  ? 

Now  that  this  striped  rascal  has  had  his  light  put 
out,  it  is  hard  to  justify  the  act,  after  all.  He  was  a 


gS  A  DAY  ON  Till'   LOS  GATOS, 

thief,  stealthy,  cowardly,  blood-loving,  and  cruel. 
Hut  then  his  education  had  been  neglected.  And 
while  his  moral  sentiments  had  been  lapsing  for 
generations,  note  what  a  gain  there  has  been  in  his 
animal  development ;  for  he  is  next  of  kin  to  the 
common  house-cat.  You  cannot  upset  this  theory  by 
pointing  to  his  abbreviated  tail.  How  long  do  you 
suppose  it  is  since  every  one  of  your  hair-splitting 
casuists  had  a  tail  more  than  twice  as  long  as  this 
fellow,  whose  descendants,  in  two  generations  more, 
may  have  none  at  all  ?  Taking  him  up  by  his  enor 
mous  jowls,  rounding  off  a  head  suggesting  diabolical 
acquisitiveness — it  is  only  necessary  to  carry  a  Darwin 
ian  rush-light  in  the  other  hand  to  go  straight  to  the 
right  man  and  say :  Here  is  a  link  in  your  chain  of 
development,  only  three  removes  from  the  point  you 
have  reached.  What  a  pity  that  this  diminution  of 
tail  and  claws  does  not  signify  a  corresponding 
decrease  of  cruel  and  stealthy  circumvention!  You 
wag  your  tail  approvingly  to  this  proposition,  Samson. 
Hut  this  business  of  exterminating  pests  had  better 
cease.  Hecause,  if  carried  out  honestly,  it  would  In- 
inconvenient  to  some  thousands  of  men  and  women 
who  are  just  now  cumbering  the  world  to  no  purpose. 


A  DAY  ON  THE  LOS  GATOS.  99 

It  goes  against  the  grain  mightily  to  admit  that  a 
wild  cat  might  ever  become  an  angel ;  but  if  there  is 
any  obscure  law  tending  to  such  a  result,  it  is  better 
to  interfere  with  it  as  little  as  possible.  If  both  moral 
and  physical  perfectibility  are  only  a  question  of  time, 
the  fellow  who  sells  his  fiery  potations  close  by  that 
sweet  mountain-spring,  and  is  never  conscious  of  its 
perpetual  rebuke,  ought  to  have  a  margin,  at  least,  of 
five  million  years. 

There  is  a  cleft  in  the  mountain,  about  ten  miles  to 
the  south-west  of  Santa  Clara.  That  engineering  was 
done  by  the  Los  Gatos.  Entering  this  defile,  the 
stage-road  winds  along  the  mountain-side  for  six  or 
seven  miles,  and  then  turns  to  the  right  and  goes  down 
the  mountain-slope  to  Santa  Cruz.  But  as  long  as 
there  are  any  stage-roads  in  sight,  or  signs  of  abrading 
wheels,  you  will  find  no. trout.  Turning  to  the  left 
and  following  the  ridge,  at  a  height  of  about  two 
thousand  feet,  a  walk  of  three  or  four  miles  brings  one 
to  a  point  where  civilization  runs  out  with  the  dis 
appearance  of  the  last  trail.  That  mountain  lifting  its 
dark  crest  so  kingly  into  the  clouds,  is  Loma  Prieta, 
the  highest  crest  of  the  Coast  Range.  On  the  north 
side  of  that  intervening  slope,  and  nearly  a  thousand 


ioo  .1    It  A  Y  <>\  '/'//A'  Lns  >;.]  TO8, 

feet  higher,  you  will  find  the  source  of  the  Los  (latos. 
It  is  six  miles  away.  There  a  -real  fountain  bubbles 
out  of  the  mountain-side,  and  the  stream,  clear  and 
strong,  and  singing  for  very  joy,  goes  bounding  on  to 
the  gorges  below.  The  upper  stream  has  never  been 
defiled  by  sawdust  :  and  no  lout  in  shining  boots  eva 
went  up  to  its  head.  It  is  best  to  go  into  camp  here, 
and  take  a  fresh  start  the  next  morning.  In  the 
early  dawn — before  the  sun  glares  on  the  land  and 
sea — town  and  hamlet,  valley  and  mountain, 'have  a 
morning  glory,  which  it  were  better  not  to  miss. 
Looking  oceanward,  the  fir  and  the  redwood  send  up 
their  spires  of  eternal  green  from  all  the  valleys.  At 
midnight,  the  full  moon  was  Hooding  all  the  mountain 
to])  with  light,  and  was  apparently  shining  upon  the 
still  ocean,  which  had  come  quite  to  the  base  of  the 
mountain.  The  fog  had  come  in  during  the  night, 
but  hugged  the  earth  so  closely  that  every  hillock 
appeared  like  an  island  resting  on  the  calm,  white 
All  night  long,  the  moon  shone  on  this  upper  stratum, 
/ling  with  wonderful  distinctness  the  tops  of  the 
tallest  redwoods,  while  the  trunks  appeared  to  be 
submerged.  It  was  not  easy  to  dispel  the  illusion 
that  one  with  a  skiff  might  have  paddled  from  one 


A  DAY  ON  THE  LOS  GATOX.  101 

wooded  islet  to  another,  threading  a  thousand  intricate 
channels,  drifting  past  the  homes  of  strange  peoples 
whose  lives  were  symbolized  by  this  serene  and  silent 
sea.  But  the  illusion  would  not  hold  water,  when,  at 
early  dawn,  a  clumsy  two-horse  wagon  went  lumbering 
down  the  mountain  and  disappeared  under  this  white 
stratum.  When  the  sun  came  up,  all  the  ragged  and 
fleecy  edges  rolled  in  upon  the  centre,  and  there  was 
a  silent  seaward  march,  until  at  mid-day  the  fog 
banked  up  with  perpendicular  walls,  about  a  dozen 
miles  from  the  land.  A  little  farther  down  the  valley, 
the  trees  were  dripping  with  the  moisture  of  this 
migratory  ocean.  But  not  a  drop  was  collected  on  the 
glistening  leaves  of  the  madrono  which  gave  us 
friendly  shelter  that  night.  It  was  a  good  place 
enough  to  sleep ;  but  if  one  is  to  take  an  observation 
every  half-hour  during  the  night,  he  will  have  no 
difficulty  in  getting  up  at  the  call  of  the  birds. 

The  first  sound  heard  in  the  morning  was  the  yelp 
of  a  miserable  coyote.  The  intrusive  rascal  had 
pitched  his  key  in  advance  of  thrush,  or  lark,  or  robin. 
It  was  easy  enough  to  silence  him  with  a  shot-gun ; 
but  as  the  birds  also  would  have  been  frightened  into 
silence,  this  ill-favored  vagabond  was  moderated  by 


102  A  DAT  OS  /'///•;  LOB  '.M 'my. 

pitching  two  stones  at  him,  with  no  other  result  than 
securing  a  lame  shoulder  for  a  week.  The  thing  was 
entirely  overdone  ;  and  if  the  fellow  had  any  percep 
tion  of  the  ridiculous,  he  went  into  his  hole  and 
laughed  for  the  space  of  half  an  hour. 

The  altitude  was  too  great  for  the  home  of  robin 
and  linnet.  I  Jut  the  woodpeckers  went  screaming  by, 
and  the  shy  yellow  hammers  llitted  noiselessly  from 
tree  to  tree  ;  while,  in  the  thicket,  the  cock  quails  were 
•  ailing  out  the  coveys  for  an  early  breakfast.  Two 
deer  had  come  down  the  mountain-slope,  and  finally 
halted  at  half-rifle-shot,  looking  stupidly  at  the  camp- 
fire.  If  they  understood  the  statute  made  in  their 
behalf,  they  were  perfectly  sife.  Hut  Samson,  who 
had  stood  for  three  minutes  with  one  fore-leg  raised  in 
an  intensely  dramatic  way,  made  a  spring  at  last,  and, 
without  warrant  of  law,  ran  them  down  the  canyon  ; 
and  ten  minutes  later  they  were  seen  going  up  the 
opposite  slope,  but  with  many  redundant  antics, 
indicating  contempt  for  the  cur  which  had  sought  to 
worry  them.  Later  in  the  day,  three  or  four  more 
weK  -<vn,  and  one  half-grown  fawn  was  following  the 
roe,  the  latter  finally  taking  the  wind  and  bounding 
off  handsomely,  while  the  fawn,  less  keen  of  scent, 


A  DAY  ON  THE  LOS  GATOS.  103 

turned  about  and  looked  inquiringly,  without  any  clear 
perception  of  danger.  It  is  evident  that  so  long  as 
the  fawn  depends  upon  the  mother  for  protection,  it 
has  not  a  very  keen  scent  nor  a  quick  apprehension  of 
approaching  danger.  These  are  only  perfected  later, 
when  the  fawn  is  left  to  care  of  itself.  The  cub  is 
very  foolish  ;  the  young  fox  has  no  more  of  cunning 
than  a  common  puppy ;  and  a  young  ground-squirrel, 
in  time  of  danger,  rashly  bobs  his  head  out  of  the  hole 
long  before  his  venerable  parents  venture  to  take  an 
observation.  We  might  have  had  a  smoking  haunch 
of  venison  that  morning,  but  it  would  have  lacked  that 
fine  moral  quality  which  the  game-law  withheld.  If 
you  want  to  know  the  terrible  power  of  temptation, 
breakfast  on  bacon  when  two  deer  are  within  rifle-shot. 
It  took  not  less  than  three  hours  to  work  through 
the  interminable  thickets,  and  to  climb  over  the 
rocks,  and  gain  a  place  for  the  first  cast  of  a  line. 
These  mountain  trout  strike  quick  or  not  at  all. 
There  is  a  delicious,  tingling  sensation  when  the 
fellows  jump  from  the  eddies  and  swirls  more  than  a 
foot  out  of  water.  You  need  not  spit  on  your  bait  for 
luck,  when  the  fish  are  breaking  water  for  the  hook, 
and  the  dark  pools  are  alive  with  them  ;  not  very  large, 


'&*    OF  TH*         ^ 


, 


i..j  A  DAT  OH   I'll V  A"\  QA  TOS. 

but  with  keen  mountain  appetites,  having  the  brightest 
colors,  hard  of  flesh,  and  gamy.  Well — yes,  here  is 
where  the  fun  comes  in,  after  crawling  for  more  than 
two  miles  through  the  brush,  and  over  jailed  rocks. 

Not  the  least  of  it  is  to  observe  that  H has  gone 

daft  from  over-excitement,  and  is  throwing  his  fish  into 
the  tree-tops.  What  with  the  moon  shining  on  his 
face  last  night,  the  deer  coming  down  to  tantuli/e  him, 
and  these  mountain  trout  jumping  wild  for  the  hook, 
there  is  just  as  much  lunacy  as  it  is  safe  to  encounter 
at  this  altitude. 

The  stream  holds  out  well,  and  has  not  perceptibly 
diminished  in  a  linear  ascent  of  the  mountain-side  of 
nearly  three  miles.  A  never-failing  reservoir,  at  an 
altitude  of  perhaps  twenty-three  hundred  feet,  creates 
the  main  branch  ;  while  lower  down  there  i-  a 
constant  augmentation  from  runnels,  up  some  of 
which  the  trout  find  their  way.  It  is  best  not  to 
slight  these  little  branches;  fof  occasionally  the  water 
sinks,  running  underground  for  awhile,  and  then 
^o  that  a  succession  of  pools  is  formed, 
which  arrest  the  fish  ;  and,  having  nothing  to  eat,  they 
prey  upon  each  other,  until  rarely  more  than  two  <>r 
three  remain,  and  sometimes  a  solitary  fish  is  left,  he 


A  DAY  ON  THE  LOS  GATOS.  105 

having  ate  up  all  his  poor  relations,  and  thus  supplied 
their  wants  and  his  own.  There  is  nothing  very 
strange  in  this  piscatory  economy,  after  all.  That 
bald-headed  man,  who  lost  his  gravity,  and  slid  down 
a  shelving  rock  nearly  twenty  feet  into  the  pool,  and 
went  out  on  the  other  side,  with  a  solitary  fish  dangling 
at  his  hook,  and  a  most  unearthly  yell,  is  playing  the 
same  game  in  a  business  pool.  There  are  more  in  it 
than  can  possibly  succeed.  One  by  one,  he  will  eat 
up  the  others  and  become  a  millionaire.  If  a  bigger 
fish  in  the  pool  eats  him,  it  is  only  a  slight  variation 
of  chances,  which  the  commercial  ethics  of  the  times 
will  just  as  heartily  approve.  You  have  made  that 
pool  desolate ;  but  it  is  not  necessary  to  yell  so  as  to 
disturb  the  universe  over  a  half-pound  trout.  If  ever, 
O  friend,  you  should  have  the  luck  to  be  drawn  out  of 
a  pool  thus,  will  there  be  no  yelling  in  the  subterranean 
caverns? 

There  is  no  heroism  in  jerking  every  fish  out  of 
this  stream,  just  because  they  have  keen  mountain 
appetites.  Moreover,  as  the  rays  of  the  sun 
become  vertical,  light  is  thrown  into  the  pools  and 
eddies,  and  the  bites  are  languid  and  less  frequent. 
An  hour  before  sunset  they  will  be  as  brisk  as  ever. 


106  A  DAY  ON  THE  LOS  OA  /"> 

But  a  hundred  trout  are  enough  for  one  morning  ;  and 
too  many,  since  no  one  is  willing  to  carry  them  down 
the  mountain.  A  year  ago,  an  euthusiastic  friend 
found  the  head-waters  of  the  Butano,  just  over  the 
ridge,  toward  the  coast.  Having  cut  his  way  out  of 
the  San  Lorenzo  Valley,  making  his  own  trail  for  seven 
miles  or  more,  he  cast  in  his  hook  where,  he  stoutly 
affirmed,  no  fisherman  had  ever  preceded  him.  The 
falls  in  several  places  have  formed  deep  bas'ns  in  the 
soft,  white  sandstone.  There  this  enthusiastic  fisher 
man  found  his  heaven  for  two  hours,  until  night  began 
to  close  in  upon  him.  Did  he  go  into  a  tree-top  for 
the  night,  and  pull  his  two  hundred  trout  up  after  him  ? 
\  But  he  left  them  in  a  heap,  and  crept  down  the 
mountain  at  dusk,  his  pace  quickened  a  little  by  the 
sight  of  a  fresh  bear-track.  I  do  not  think  an  honest 
bear,  made  fully  acquainted  with  such  sacrilegious 
conduct,  would  eat  a  man,  or  so  much  as  smell  of 
him. 

All  day  long  the  perspective  has  been  growing 
broader  and  richer,  until  these  diminutive  little  fish, 
destined  to  be  swallowed  with  a  single  snap  of  the  jaws 
—even  as  they  sought  to  snap  the  wriggling  worm  — 
have  become  a  minor  incident  in  the  crowding  events 


A  DAY  ON  THE  LOS  GATOS.  107 

of  the  day.  For  an  hour  after  dawn  the  only  outlook 
was  into  the  Santa  Clara  Valley.  But  the  morning 
was  cold ;  the  thin,  gray  smoke  went  up  silently  into 
the  heavens  from  here  and  there  a  farm-house ;  across 
the  valley  a  low  column  of  mist  clung  to  the  foot-hills 
and  rolled  sullenly  away.  The  rank  vegetation  of 
early  spring,  broken  occasionally  by  the  plowed  fields, 
had  all  the  abruptness  of  contrast  seen  in  the  patch 
work  of  a  bed-quilt ;  and,  in  the  chill  of  the  dawn, 
was  not  a  whit  more  pleasing  to  the  eyes.  But  an 
hour  later,  the  sunlight  filled  all  the  valley  ;  the  harsher 
tints  of  the  morning  were  melted  into  the  more 
subdued  glory  of  the  spring ;  and  one  could  fancy 
that  the  scent  of  almond  blossoms  came  up  the 
mountain,  mingled  with  the  grosser  incense  of  the 
mold  and  tilth  of  many  fields.  Even  the  solitary, 
stunted  pine  far  up  the  mountain  was  dropping  down 
its  leafy  spicula^  like  javelins  cast  aslant,  and  the  last 
year's  cones  fell  with  a  rattle,  like  hand-grenades  cast 
from  some  overhanging  battlement.  Life  was  crowding 
death  even  here,  and  the  pine  was  freshening  its  fol. 
iage,  as  certain  of  spring-time  as  the  alder  just  shaking 
out  its  tassels  by  the  river-bank.  Away  to  the  south 
west  the  Bay  of  Monterey,  with  its  breadth  of  twenty 


io8  A  DAY  ON  THM  LOS  C,A TOS. 

miles,  was  reduced  to  a  little  patch  of  blue  water  : 
and  wide  off  there  was  a  faint  trail  of  smoke  along  the 
horizon  ;  the  sign  that  a  steamer  was  going  down  the 
coast  for  puncheons  of  wine  and  fleeces  of  wool. 

The  glass  reveals  the  dome  of  a  church  at  Santa 
Cruz,  looking  a  little  larger  than  a  bird-cage  set  down 
by  the  ocean.  The  famous  picture  on  the  ceiling  of 
the  old  adobe  church  disappeared  when  the  storms 
melted  down  the  mud  walls.  If  the  perspective  vnu 
faulty,  the  picture  had  a  lively  moral  for  bad  Indians. 
Hut  something  better  was  found  not  many  years  ago — 
so  the  village  tradition  runs — in  one  of  the  lofts  over 
an  old  store-room  near  by.  The  Padre  going  up 
there  with  the  village  sign-painter,  to  hunt  for  some 
half-forgotten  thing,  drew  out  of  the  lumber  a  lot  of 
blurred  and  musty  canvas,  giving  it  to  his  friend. 
The  latter  hastened  home,  and  unrolling  his  canvas, 
saw  that  upon  one  side  there  had  once  been  a  picture. 
Hut  the  pigment  was  now  only  powdered  atoms,  which 
a  feather  would  sweep  away.  Oiling  a  new  canvas,  he 
laid  it  upon  the  back  of  the  picture,  and  the  oil 
striking  through,  the  first  process  of  restoration  was 
safely  accomplished  Then  the  surface  of  the  picture 
was  carefully  cleaned.  The  si^n  painter  quietly  hung 


A  DAY  ON  THE  LOS  GATOS.  109 

up  his  picture,  satisfied  that  there  was  an  infinite 
distance  between  it  and  a  common  daub.  The  Padre 
wanted  the  picture  back  after  this  sudden  revelation 
of  its  wonderful  beauty  But  it  never  was  transferred 
again  to  the  old  lumber-room. 

"  What  became  of  the  Padre?" 

"  I  think  he  went  to  heaven,  where  he  found  better 
pictures  than  were  ever  fished  out  of  that  old  lumber- 
room." 

"  And  the  sign-painter?  " 

"  Did  you  ever  know  a  man  who  had  a  Murillo,  or 
even  thought  he  had  one,  who  was  in  a  hurry  to  leave 
this  world?" 


SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA. 


SHADOWS  OF  ST.   HELENA. 


WHETHER  in  the  Russian  River  Valley,  Napa,  or 
the  smaller  valleys  of  the  Clear  Lake  country,  St. 
Helena  is  in  such  friendly  proximity  that  all  sense  of 
isolation  is  destroyed.  Looking  toward  the  south  from 
its  shoulder,  there  was  an  endless  succession  of  stubble- 
fields  and  vineyards;  the  faint  clatter  of  threshing, 
machines  could  be  heard;  sacks  of  wheat  stood  bolt 
upright  in  the  fields,  like  millers  in  convention.  A 
train  of  cars,  diminished  by  the  long  perspective,  was 
creeping  with  serpentine  undulations  up  the  valley,  and 
trailing  a  thin  vapor  against  the  sky.  Farther  south 
was  the  bay ;  white  sails  of  little  schooners,  out 
lined  by  the  glass,  appeared  to  split  the  salt  meadows 
open,  as  they  crept  toward  the  little  town  of  Napa. 
St.  Helena  was  grandly  lifted  up,  on  that  autumnal 
morning,  and  all  the  little  mountains  seemed  to  be 
rendering  homage  to  the  king. 

There  is  no  country  under  the  sun  where  a  vineyard 
is  more  picturesque  than  here.  If  there  were  an 


II4  SHADOWS  <>l-   ST.    IIKI.KSA. 

interminable  perpective  of  green,  clothing  and  coloring 
all  the  hill-sides,  there  would  be  no  fitting  border  for 
the  picture.  But  when  there  is  not  a  fresh  blade  of 
grass  by  the  way-side,  and  the  tawny  hills  touch  the 
yellow  stubble-fields,  we  have  a  broad,  golden  frame  for 
some  picture  which  ought  to  be  worthy  of  it.  And 
what  more  so,  than  a  sixty-acre  vineyard,  set  within 
this  mitred  framework  of  mountains?  The  border  is 
a  very  generous  one,  certainly  ;  five  or  six  miles  of 
slope  on  either  side,  and  this  square  of  emerald  in  the 
centre.  It  is  all  worked  in  with  true  artistic  effect, 
except  those  straight  lines  of  vines,  crossing  at  right- 
angles.  A  poet  or  a  painter,  setting  this  vineyard, 
would  have  curved  the  lines,  or  secured  an  orderly 
disorder — enough,  at  least,  to  have  destroyed  the 
association  with  a  school-boy's  rule  and  plummet. 

Observe  that  the  vines  are  not  tied  to  clumsy,  stiff 
stakes;  nor  are  the  leaves  plucked  off  in  part,  to 
prevent  mildew.  The  runners  reach  out  and  interlace, 
resting  gently  on  the  ground.  The  leaves  droop  a 
little  in  the  hot  sun,  making  a  complete  canopy  for 
the  clusters,  the  largest  of  which  rest  on  the  ground. 
How  much  more  fitting  this  growing  revelation — this 
discovery,  step  by  step,  of  hidden  clusters — than  to  see 


SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA.  115 

all  this  wealth  at  once,  as  one  might  do  if  the  vines  were 
trained  bolt  upright,  and  held  in  bondage  by  stakes. 

Another  notable  effect  is  produced  by  the  twenty  or 
more  varieties,  differing  in  the  shape  of  the  leaf  and  in 
the  color  and  flavor  of  the  grape.  The  Tokay  blushes 
by  the  side  of  the  blackest  Malvoisie.  The  Muscatel 
is  pale  where  the  Victoria  has  as  much  color  as  a 
ruddy  English  girl.  The  Muscats  have  a  tinge  of 
gold,  in  fine  contrast  with  the  Rose  of  Peru,  whose 
regal  purple  deepens  with  every  midday  sun. 

Three  months  hence,  this  border  of  gold  will  all  be 
changed  to  the  rank  and  riotous  green  of  pastures 
quickened  by  the  vernal  rains — this  square  setting,  as 
of  emerald,  stripped  of  every  leaf  and  every  cluster, 
but  the  bronzed  vines  still  interlacing  and  toning  the 
landscape  into  a  mellow  ripeness.  A  month  later,  the 
merciless  pruning-knife  has  left  only  the  black  stub,  a 
foot  above  the  ground,  and  two  or  three  "  eyes"  for  the 
new  wood.  This  amputated  vineyard,  with  its  limbs 
burning  by  the  way-side,  suggests  enough  of  prosy 
realism  to  neutralize  all  the  sentiment  which  it  can 
inspire  on  a  hot  September  day. 

Will  the  juice  of  these  grapes  enrich  the  blood,  and 
add  any  essential  quality  to  the  tone  and  fibre  of  a 


no  SHADOWS  or  ST.   HELENA. 

rare  which  is  giving  so  many  signs  of  physical 
decadence?  This  conglomerate  which  you  call 
society  is  hanging  out  a  great  many  flags  of  distress. 
It  babbles  incoherently  of  perfectibility,  and  goes 
straightway  to  the  bad.  Are  those  reformers  going  to 
save  the  world,  who,  either  through  intemperance  of 
speech  or  drink,  must  needs  be  moderated  by  a  pad 
lock  put  upon  their  mouths  ?  Nor  is  it  safe,  just  now, 
to  calculate  the  results  of  this  feminine  gospel  of 
vituperation.  The  back  of  the  body  politic  may  be 
the  better  for  having  a  political  fly-blister  laid  on;  and 
it  might,  perhaps,  as  well  be  done  by  feminine  hands 
as  any  other.  But  there  are  some  evils  too  deep  for 
surface  remedies.  If,  for  instance,  vineyards  are 
going  to  curse  the  people,  as  my  moral i/ing  friend 
insists,  then  humanity  hereabout  is  in  a  bad  way. 
Why,  a  little  generous  wine  ought  to  enrich  the  blood 
and  inspire  nobility  of  thought.  If  it  does  more  than 
this — it  it  becomes  a  demon  to  drive  men  and  hogs 
into  the  sea-  then  it  is  evident  that  both  were  on  too 
low  a  plane  of  existence  for  any  safe  exaltation.  Jlut 
shall  the  vineyards  be  rooted  up,  for  all  this?  It  is 
better  to  drown  the  swine,  and  let  the  grapes  still 
grow  purple  upon  the  hill  sides. 


SHA  DO  WS  OF  S T.  HELENA .  117 

Some  day  these  mountains  will  be  wreathed  and 
festooned  with  vines.  One  may  see  this  culture 
now  climbing  to  their  tops.  Oh,  my  friend!  with  thin 
and  impoverished  blood,  do  not  pinch  this  question 
up  in  the  vise  of  your  morality.  No  doubt  there  was 
a  vineyard  in  Eden,  and  there  were  ripe  clusters  close 
by  the  fig-leaves.  You  cannot  prove  to  me  that  sinless 
hands  have  not  plucked  the  grapes,  and  that  millions 
will  not  do  it  again.  What  we  need  is  not  a  greater 
company  of  wailing  prophets,  but  men  who  will  reveal 
to  us  the  higher  and  nobler  use  of  things.  If  one 
could  not  live  comfortably  in  this  Vale  of  Paradise 
and  ripen  from  year  to  year,  opening  his  soul  to  all 
enriching  influences,  without  an  everlasting  protest, 
there  would  be  small  chance  for  his  comfort  in  any 
more  etherealized  place. 

Looking  northward,  or  from  the  back  side  of  St. 
Helena,  is  Lake  County,  the  centre  of  which  can  be 
reached  by  the  daylight  of  a  summer  day  from  San 
Francisco.  It  is  a  wild,  isolated,  and  mountainous 
region,  containing  a  harmless  population,  who  are 
much  addicted  to  salt  pork,  and  needing  all  the  more, 
perhaps,  the  medicinal  and  renovating  qualities  of  the 
various  thermal  springs  which  abound.  A  Pike,  with 


u8  SHADOWS  OF  ST.   ///•:/.  UNA. 

the  wilderness  at  his  back,  and  civili/.ation  advancing 
in  front,  is  sometimes  a  ridiculous,  and  oftener  a 
pitiable,  specimen  of  humanity.  When  the  school- 
house  overtakes  him,  there  is  a  crisis  in  his  affairs. 
He  must  elect  to  hustle  half  a  score  of  frouzy-headed 
children  into  his  covered  wagon,  hang  a  few  pots  and 
kettles  at  the  rear,  and  plunge  farther  into  the  wilder 
ness,  or  let  civilization  go  past  him,  closing  in  upon 
all  sides,  and,  in  spite  of  impotent  protests,  narrowing 
perhaps  his  own  horizon,  but  making  it  broader  and 
brighter  for  his  children.  If  the  horizon  is  too  bright, 
this  blinking  Pike  will  turn  his  back  to  the  light,  and 
make  a  break  for  Egypt.  So  long  as  there  is  bacon 
and  hominy,  and  free  territory,  with  a  modicum  of 
whisky  within  easy  reach,  you  cannot  summon  this 
stolid,  retreating  animal  to  a  better  condition. 
Nature  has  made  a  botch  of  him,  else  he  would  now 
be  running  on  four  feet,  instead  of  two.  A  border 
man,  running  away  from  civilization,  who  cannot  bark 
and  burrow  like  a  coyote,  nor  climb  a  tree  like  a 
gorilla,  is  wrestling  with  his  fate  at  a  terrible  dis 
advantage. 

If  you  have  never  seen  Clear  Lake,  do  not  babble 
about  Como  and  Geneva.       Here  are  eighty  square 


~  or  TIT? 

'TTITIVEI 


oar 


SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA. 


miles  of  water,  lifted  fifteen  hundred  feet  above  the 
sea,  and  encompassed  by  mountains  whose  flaming 
forges  were  put  out  but  yesterday — if  a  thousand  years 
may  be  taken  as  one  day.  One  may  see  Clear  Lake 
from  the  top  of  St.  Helena,  twenty  miles  distant,  on 
a  bright  day.  We  saw  it  first  from  Lukonoma — an 
intervening  mountain,  about  fifteen  hundred  feet  high, 
a  ribbon  of  blue  water,  stretching  away  between  the 
hills,  with  a  solitary  white  sail — recognized  only  by 
bringing  a  tree  in  the  range.  There  was  the  droning 
of  the  pines  in  the  mountain-tops  in  the  afternoon 
trade-wind  ;  a  broad  valley  opening  to  the  south,  which 
swallowed  up  two  or  three  mountain  streams,  and  then 
opened  its  ugly,  adobe  lips  for  more ;  smaller  valleys 
toward  the  north,  encircled  with  tall  firs,  and  the 
slumberous  dome  of  Uncle  Sam,  lifting  itself  up 
grandly  three  or  four  thousand  feet  hard  by  the  lake. 
Along  this  Lukonoma  ridge  there  is  a  well-defined 
Indian  trail  for  miles.  The  Clear  Lake  Indians  were 
accustomed  to  exchange  visits  with  a  tribe  in  the 
Lukonoma  Valley,  ten  miles  below.  The  tops  of  the 
highest  mountain  ridges  were  selected  for  trails,  rather 
than  the  valley.  The  Indian  does  not  like  to  be 
surprised,  even  by  his  friends.  Along  these  ridges  he 


120  SHADOWS  Or  ST.    HELENA. 

could  look  off  on  either  side,  and  a  long  way  ahead. 
If  not  molested,  he  might  drop  down  to  the  hot  springs 
just  at  the  base  of  the  mountain  ;  take  a  mud-bath  to 
make  his  joints  a  little  more  supple ;  and  if  he  found 
an  ant's-nest  to  add  to  his  dietary  stores,  so  much  the 
better.  You  need  not  overhaul  the  Indian's  cook 
book.  He  ate  the  ants  alive.  No  shrimp-eater  ought 
to  quarrel  with  him  on  that  score. 

We  shall  have  a  nearer  view  of  Lower  Lake  another 
day.  It  is  better  to  have  the  first  view  of  some  old 
and  famous  city  from  the  hill-tops.  That  revelation 
ripens  into  a  picture  which  ever  afterward  we  hasten 
to  set  over  against  the  squalor  and  ugliness  disclosed 
by  a  nearer  view.  One  need  not  be  wholly  disgusted, 
if,  in  place  of  a  trout,  he  has  caught  a  mud-turtle  from 
the  lake  which  opened  its  sheen  of  waters  to  him  first 
from  the  mountain  summit. 

The  shadows  had  stretched  nearly  across  the  narrow 
valleys,  when  it  occured  to  us,  that  in  climbing  to  the 
highest  and  baldest  peak,  the  Indian  trail  had  run  out, 
and  that  the  hot  springs— the  point  of  departure- 
were  eight  miles  distant,  and  were  shut  out  of  view  by 
an  intervening  spur.  Hither  a  short-cut  was  to  be 
made,  trusting  to  luck  to  find  a  trail,  or  there  was  to 


SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA.  121 

be  a  night  on  the  mountain.  There  were  two  inter 
vening  canyons  to  be  crossed  before  there  was  any 
prospect  of  striking  a  trail.  It  is  not  pleasant  to  slide 
a  horse  on  his  haunches  down  into  one  of  these 
chasms  without  knowing  where  one  is  to  bring  up. 
If  the  most  obscure  cattle-trail  can  be  found  leading 
in,  one  may  trust  to  the  instincts  of  horse-sense  to  find 
it,  and  also  the  one  which  will  most  certainly  lead  out 
on  the  other  side.  The  tinkling  of  a  cow-bell  on  the 
table-lands  beyond,  was  a  welcome  sound.  The 
horses  wound  into  the  first  canyon,  and  went  out 
without  much  hesitation.  The  trail  for  the  next,  by 
good  luck,  had  been  found.  But  it  was  a  suspicious 
circumstance  that  these  ponies — accustomed  to  those 
defiles,  and  now  heading  for  home — hesitated,  snuffed, 
snorted,  and  turned  about.  The  rein  was  given  to 
them,  but,  hungry  as  they  were,  they  seemed  disposed 
to  turn  back.  The  little  Cayuse  pony  trembled, 
threw  his  ears  forward,  advanced  and  retreated,  and 
blew  out  a  column  of  vapor  from  each  nostril  as  he 
kept  up  his  aboriginal  snort.  Either  two  tired  and 
hungry  excursionists  must  make  a  night  of  it,  shut  in 
by  a  canyon  in  front  and  in  the  rear,  or  the  second  one 
must  be  crossed  without  delay. 


122  SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA. 

A  horse  is  generally  willing  to  plant  his  feet  where 
he  sees  a  man  do  it  in  advance.  But  these  horses 
were  dragged  into  the  chasm,  sometimes  dropping  on 
their  haunches,  and  at  other  times  plowing  along  with 
the  fore-feet  braced  well  ahead.  Once  at  the  bottom, 
a  fresh  sinch  was  taken  with  the  greatest  difficulty,  as 
neither  horse  could  be  kept  still  for  a  second.  A 
moment  afterward  the  click  of  the  pony's  feet  was 
heard,  and  the  sparks  thrown  off  by  his  shoes  were 
distinct  enough  as  he  shot  up  the  trail  as  though 
projected  from  a  mortar.  The  old  horse — stiff  in  the 
shoulders,  and  his  legs  like  crow-bars—was  not  a  rod 
behind  him. 

"  I  )id  you  see  any  thing  in  that  canyon  ?  " 

«  NO— yes.  I  saw  the  outline  of  a  steer  going 
down  to  drink." 

"  Nonsense.  Do  you  think  these  tired  horses,  refus 
ing  first  to  come  into  the  canyon,  would  have  gone 
out  on  the  other  side  as  if  Satan  were  after  them,  if 
they  did  not  know  that  that  particular  steer  had  claws? 
If  you  had  seen  twenty  mules  break  out  of  a  yard  and 
stampede  when  the  foot  of  a  cinnamon  bear  was  thrown 
over,  you  would  not  blame  these  horses  for  bla/iim 
the  trail  with  fire  as  they  thundered  up  the 


SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA.  123 

rocks  with  the  fresh  scent   of  a~live  grizzly  in  their 
nostrils." 

"  Then,  if  you  are  willing  to  take  the  affidavits  of 
these  two  horses  as  to  the  facts — and  the  jurat  of 
eight  steel-clad  hoofs,  striking  fire  on  the  rocks,  was 
a  very  solemn  one — you  can  settle  the  question  in 
favor  of  the  grizzly  much  more  comfortably  than  he 
would  have  settled  it  for  you.  It  is  not  necessary  that 
one's  scalp  should  be  pulled  over  his  eyes  and  his  face 
set  awry  for  life,  in  order  to  obtain  a  more  convincing 
demonstration.  I  can  refer  you  to  a  settler  who  has 
had  these  things  done  for  him — whereat  his  satisfaction 
has  in  no  whit  increased." 

An  hour  afterward,  two  horses  with  drooping  heads 
went  into  their  stalls,  and  two  jaded  excursionists  had 
each  dropped  into  hot  baths  at  Harbin's  Springs. 
Nothing  externally  will  neutralize  the  chill  of  a  night- 
ride  among  the  mountains  better  than  water  which 
spouts  from  this  hill-side  heated  to  no  degrees.  It 
is  a  notable  caprice  of  Nature,  that,  of  three  springs 
within  the  span  of  twenty  feet,  one  is  cold  and  has  no 
mineral  qualities ;  the  other  two  are  of  'about  the 
same  temperature,  the  waters  of  one  strongly  impreg 
nated  with  iron  and  the  other  with  sulphur.  Th  e 


,24  SHADOWS  Of  ST.  HKl.KNA. 

waters  of  the  two  mineral  springs  combined  are  not 
only  as  hot  as  a  strong  man  can  bear,  but  they  dissolve 
zinc  bath-tubs,  which  was  a  satisfactory  reason  for  the 
substitution  of  ugly  wooden  bathing-boxes.  It  is  a 
pleasant  nook,  grandly  encircled  with  mountains, 
with  the  wonderfully  blue  heavens  by  day,  and  lustrous 
stars  by  night. 

Fifty  or  sixty  moping  invalids  made  up  the  assort 
ment  at  the  hotel.  These  taciturn  and  moody  people 
did  not  wait  for  the  angel  to  go  down  and  trouble  the 
waters,  but  each  went  in  his  own  way  and  time  and 
troubled  the  waters  mightily  on  his  personal  account. 
The  fact  may  be  assumed  that  the  angel  had  been 
there  in  advance.  For  a  thousand  years,  a  great 
subterranean  caldron  had  been  heated,  tempered  and 
medicated,  and  its  vapors  had  ascended  as  incense 
toward  heaven. 

This  little  sanitarium  among  the  mountains,  crowded 
with  curious  people — angular,  petulant,  and  capricious 
— was  invested  with  a  great  pjace  and  restfulness  for 
brain-weary  folk.  When  the  sun  went  down,  invalids, 
like  children,  went  off  to  bed.  There  was  nothing  to 
do  but  to  sleep  through  the  IOIIL;,  cool  nights.  All 
t'l-j  conventionalities  of  a  more  artificial  social  life 


SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA.  125 

were  reversed.  The  people  who  had  fought  Nature 
and  common  sense  for  years,  and  had  been  worsted  in 
the  conflict,  came  here  to  make  their  peace  with  her. 
They  were  up  with  the  opening  of  the  day.  They 
drank  medicated  waters  heroically ;  dropped  into  hot 
baths  with  a  sensation  akin  to  have  fallen  on  the 
points  of  a  million  needles  ;  plunged  into  pools,  or 
were  immersed  with  the  vapors  collected  in  close 
rooms.  There  were  early  breakfasts,  when  the 
boards  were  swept  by  invalids  with  ravenous  appetites; 
dinners,  at  midday,  attended  by  the  same  hungry, 
silent,  introspective  people;  supper,  before  sundown 
when  the  same  famishing  people  were  eating  away  for 
dear  life.  A  four-horse  passenger-wagon  arrived  just 
at  night-fall,  bringing  the  mail  and  an  occasional 
guest.  There  was  a  glance  at  the  newspapers,  now 
and  then  a  letter  was  read,  and  then  night  and  a 
sweet  stillness  settled  over  this  mountain  dell.  Time 
was  of  little  consequence;  people  searched  an  old 
almanac  for  the  day  of  the  week  or  month  ;  the  sun 
rose  above  the  crest  of  one  mountain  and  went  down 
behind  another ;  there  were  the  morning  and  evening 
shadows,  the  same  flood  of  light  in  the  valley  at  mid 
day,  the  monotonous  drone  of  the  little  rivulet  in  the 


126  SHADO\Y*  09  ST.   HELENA. 

canyon,  and  at  long  intervals  the  twitter  of  a  solitary 
bird.  Some  sauntered  along  trails,  counting  the  steps 
with  a  sort  of  mental  vacuity ;  others  tilted  their 
chairs  under  porches,  and  slept  with  hats  over  their 
eyes.  If  a  bustling,  loud-voiced  guest  arrived,  in  a 
day  or  two  he  fell  into  the  same  peaceful  and  subdued 
ways.  The  repose  of  sky  and  mountain  came  down 
gently  upon  him,  and  a  dreamy  indolence  shortened 
his  steps  and  prolonged  his  afternoon  naps. 

There  would  have  been  an  utter  stagnation  of  life 
but  for  the  advent  of  one  of  those  characters  who 
have  been  everywhere,  seen  every  body,  and  had 
become  a  sort  of  itinerating  museum  of  odd  conceits 
and  grotesque  incidents.  There  were  many  invalids 
who  had  separated  themselves  from  business  cares, 
only  to  brood  over  their  infirmities.  They  wanted 
nothing  so  much  as,  in  some  way,  to  be  led  apart 
from  their  own  morbid  natures.  The  eccentric  little 
man  told  his  stories.  They  were  not  always  fresh,  nor 
always  extremely  witty.  Hut,  as  the  assortment  never 
ran  out,  and  the  quality  improved  from  day  to  day, 
the  fact  was  alike  creditable  to  his  inventive  powers 
and  his  benevolence.  At  lir^t,  the  worst  specimens 
of  morbid  anatomy  listened  from  a  distance,  and 


SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA.  127 

muttered,  "Foolish;"  "Don't  believe  a  word  of  it." 
The  next  day  they  hitched  their  chairs  along  a  few 
feet  nearer  to  this  story-telling  evangel.  One  could 
occasionally  see  that  a  crisis  was  coming ;  either  these 
people  must  laugh,  or  be  put  on  the  list  of  hopeless 
incurables.  Observing,  on  one  occasion,  a  man  on 
crutches,  who  after  listening  for  a  time  with  apparent 
contempt,  suddenly  withdrew  and  hobbled  off  around 
a  turn  of  the  narrow  road,  I  ventured  to  ask  him  if 
stories  were  disagreeable  to  him. 

"Oh,  no;  that  is  not  it.  You  see  I  had  not 
laughed  in  years.  I  was  determined  that  old  Hooker 
should  not  make  me  laugh,  if  I  did  not  choose  to. 
The  fact  is,  I  had  either  to  holler  or  die.  I  wouldn't 
make  a  fool  of  myself,  and  so  I  went  around  the  bend 
in  the  road,  and  turned  off  into  the  chapparal" 

As  this  man  dropped  one  crutch  in  a  week  from 
that  time,  and  in  ten  days  thereafter  was  walking  with 
a  cane,  I  have  never  doubted  that  he  "  hollered." 

At  night-fall  generous  wood-fires  glowed  upon  the 
hearth  of  the  sitting-room;  and  there  was  a  more  hopeful 
light  in  many  faces.  People  lingered  in  the  door-way, 
on  the  stairs,  and  leaned  over  the  balustrade  for  one 
more  story  from  the  genial  and  eccentric  man.  A 


128  >//.!  hnWS  OF  ST.    I  IK  I.  EN  A. 

ripple  of  half-suppressed  laughter  went  around  the 
room,  ran  up  the  stair-way,  and  ended  in  gentle 
gurgles  in  the  rooms  with  open  doors  at  the  end  of 
the  corridor.  The  man  of  anecdote  and  story  had 
touched,  with  healing  influences,  maladies  which  no 
medicated  waters  could  reach.  He  exorcised  the 
demons  so  gently,  that  these  brooding  invalids  hardly 
knew  how  they  were  rescued.  New  and  marvelous 
virtues  were  thereafter  found  in  the  spring  water : 
there  was  a  softer  sunlight  in  the  dell ;  the  man  with 
the  liver  complaint  became  less  sallow,  and  no  longer 
talked  spitefully  about  "Old  Hooker;"  and  the 
woman,  who  did  not  expect  to  live  a  week,  no  longer 
sent  down  petulant  requests  that  the  house  might  U 
still,  but  only  wanted  that  last  story  repeated  to  her 
"just  as  he  told  it." 

<  )nce,  as  the  twilight  drew  on,  the  face  of  Hooker 
seemed  to  glow  with  unwonted  radiance,  as  he  unfolded 
his  plans  for  a  sanitary  retreat.  His  theory  was,  that 
civili/ation  had  culminated  in  mental  disorders,  and 
the  world  was  running  mad  with  excitements,  which 
half-demented  people  were  busy  in  fomenting.  Of 
the  sixty  guests  at  the  Springs,  lie  estimated  that,  at 
one  time,  not  more  than  seven  per  cent,  were  free 


SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA.  129 

from  some  sort  of  a  delusion — the  evidence  of  lunacy 
in  its  milder  forms.  If  put  into  strait-jackets,  or  shut 
up  in  the  wards  of  an  hospital,  or  treated  otherwise  as 
if  insane,  they  would  become  as  mad  as  Bedlam. 
One  delusion  must  be  matched  against  another. 
Every  man  and  woman  must  be  treated  as  sane,  and 
all  that  they  did,  or  thought,  or  said  as  the  perfection 
of  reason.  The  nonsense  of  clowns  had  cured  more 
people  than  the  wisdom  of  philosophers.  The  chem 
istry  of  Nature,  the  sunshine,  the  pure  mountain  air, 
and  all  the  subtile  combinations  of  thaumaturgic 
springs  must  be  supplemented  by  every  art  which 
could  beguile  and  lead  people  away  from  a  miserable 
self-consciousness.  A  half-hour  of  sound  sleep  is 
sometimes  the  bridge  over  the  gulf  from  death  to  life. 
He  would  not  only  make  people  sleep,  but  even  laugh 
in  their  sleep.  He  would  practice  the  highest  arts  of 
a  sanitary  magician.  His  patients  should  laugh  by 
night  and  by  day.  They  should  forget  themselves. 
The  time  would  come  when  the  best  story-teller 
would  be  accounted  the  best  physician. 

On  the  evening  before  leaving  the  Springs,  two 
hunters,  in  clay-colored  clothes,  deposited  upon  the 
porch  each  a  deer  and  a  string  of  mountain  trout. 


130  SHADOWS  OF  8T.    HKLKNA. 

Hooker,  of  blessed  memory,  after  whispering  confi 
dentially  the  bill  of  fare  for  an  early  breakfast,  went 
aside  and  talked  in  an  undertone  with  the  hunters, 
who  soon  afterward  disappeared  in  the  direction  of 
the  canyon  we  had  crossed  a  few  evenings  before. 
The  moon  being  nearly  at  full,  there  would  be  a 
good  prospect  for  deer  during  the  latter  part  of 
the  night;  but  there  was  a  possible  hint  of  larger 
game,  in  the  chuckling  undertone  of  one  of  the 
hunters  as  he  shouldered  his  rifle:  "Fellers  as  wear 
them  kind  'o  clothes  don't  know  a  bar  when  they  see 
him." 

In  the  early  morning,  the  same  hunters  were  warm 
ing  their  fingers  by  the  wood-fire  in  the  sitting  room. 
Hooker  was  already  up,  and  flitted  about — now  con 
ferring  with  the  hunters,  and  then  with  the  steward. 
A  game  breakfast  was  already  assured.  Hooker 
whispered  that  the  hunters  had  found  the  bear,  which 
sent  the  ponies  flying  out  of  the  canyon.  He  had 
been  taken  alive,  and  we  should  have  a  parting  look 
at  him  in  advance  of  the  other  guests  as  we  drove 
down  the  road.  A  Pike,  astride  of  the  corral-fence, 
saluted  Hooker  as  we  were  climbing  to  the  top  rail : 
you  'uns  found  old  corn-cracker  up  the  gulch. 


SHADOWS  OF  ST.  HELENA.  131 

He  was  powerful  weak  when  I  turned  him  out.  He's 
a  good  'un." 

One  glance  at  his  long,  yellow  tusks  and  bristling 
back  was  enough.  There  was  a  sudden  snap  of  the 
whip,  and  the  dust  spun  from  the  fields  as  two  horses 
shot  down  the  road  on  a  bright  October  morning. 
The  little  dell,  with  its  thermal  springs,  its  colony  of 
invalids,  Hooker,  the  incorrigible,  and  the  "  bear"  in 
the  corral,  disappeared  with  a  gentle  benediction. 

One  may  traverse  a  thousand  miles  of  the  Coast 
Range,  and  not  find  another  mountain  road  which 
reveals,  at  every  turn,  so  many  striking  views  as  the 
one  of  twenty  miles  from  Harbin's  to  Calistoga.  The 
road,  for  a  considerable  distance,  follows  the  windings 
of  a  noisy  and  riotous  little  rivulet,  which,  heading  on 
the  easterly  side  of  St.  Helena,  runs  obstinately  due 
north  for  several  miles.  The  fringe  of  oaks  and 
madronos  were  wonderfully  fresh,  as  they  stood  half 
in  sunlight  and  half  in  shadow,  still  dripping,  here  and 
there,  with  the  moisture  which  had  been  condensed 
during  the  night.  A  delegation  of  robins  had  come 
down  from  higher  latitudes,  and  were  taking  an  early 
and  cheery  breakfast  from  the  scarlet  berries  of  the 
madrono.  It  needed  but  the  flaming  maple  and 


1 32  8 HADO  ir.s  < > r  8  r  n /•;/.  KNA . 

falling  chestnuts,  with  some  prospect  of  "shell-barks," 
to  round  into  perfect  fullness  these  autumnal  glories. 
P>ut  no  one  living  east  of  the  Hudson  could  raise  such 
a  wild  and  unearthly  yell  as  broke  from  the  Judge 
every  time  a  cotton-tail  rabbit  darted  across  the  road. 
The  obstreperous  woodpecker  was  awed  into  silence, 
and  the  more  industrious  ones  dropped  in  ama/eimnt 
the  acorns  which  they  were  tapping  into  the  trunks  of 
the  trees,  and  flitted  silently  away. 

"That,"  said  the  Judge,  "is  not  half  as  loud  as  I 
heard  Hooker  yell  six  months  . 

"  Then  he  was  demented  ?  " 

"Yes;  he  was  as  mad  as  a  March  hare,  and  in  a 
strait-jacket  at  that." 

"  That  clears  up  one  or  two  mysteries.  But  you 
might  have  made  the  revelation  before." 

"  When  are  you  going  to  start  that  hilarious  in 
stitution,  which  you  and  Hooker  called  a  sanitarium?" 

—Just  then,  the  summit  of  the  mountain  road  had 
been  gained,  and  the  long  perspective  of  the  Napa 
Valley  opened  at  the  base  of  St.  Helena,  and  melted 
away  toward  the  south  into  the  soft,  dreamy  atinos 
pliere  of  an  autumnal  noonday. 


THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL. 


THE  HOUSE  ON  THE   HILL. 


A  COUNTRY  without  grandmothers  and  old  houses 
needs  a  great  many  balancing  compensations.  Every 
where  one  is  confronted  with  staring  new  houses, 
which  require  an  external  ripening  in  the  wind  and 
sun  for  half  a  century.  If  the  motherly  wisdom  of 
seventy-five  years  is  lodged  therein,  it  is  something  of 
recent  importation.  I  have  walked  two  miles  to  see 
an  old  lady,  who  not  only  bears  this  transplanting 
well,  but  is  as  fresh  and  winsome  in  thought  as  a  girl 
of  sixteen.  If  only  there  had  been  an  old  house,  a 
stone  fire-place — wide  at  the  jambs — and  a  low, 
receding  roof  in  the  rear,  with  a  bulging  second  story 
and  oaken  beams,  nothing  more  would  have  been 
wanting. 

When,  therefore,  it  was  whispered,  one  day,  that 
there  was  an  old  house  in  the  middle  of  a  large  lot  on 
a  hill,  overlooking  the  Golden  Gate,  there  was  a 
strong  and  unaccountable  desire  to  take  possession  of 
it  immediately.  But  when  the  fact  was  stated  that  the 


. 


1 36  / '  //  K  HO  USE  ON  THE  HI  I.  L . 

house  was  ten  years  old — that  there  was  moss  upon 
the  shingles,  low  ceilings  within,  and  a  low  roof  with 
out — the  destiny  of  that  house  was  well-nigh  settled. 
The  owner  wanted  money  much  more  than  old 
houses.  In  fact,  a  Californian  who  refuses  to  sell 
anything,  except  his  wife,  is  only  found  after  long 
intervals.  The  transfer  of  ownership  was  natural 
enough.  It  followed  that  one  evening  there  was  a 
dreamy  consciousness  that  we  were  the  owner  of  a 
small,  rusty-looking  cottage,  set  down  in  the  middle  of 
an  acre-lot,  defined  by  dilapidated  fences,  and  further 
ornamented  by  such  stumps  of  trees  as  had  been  left 
after  all  the  stray  cattle  of  the  neighborhood  had 
browsed  them  at  will.  As  incidents  of  the  transfer, 
there  was  the  Golden  (iate,  with  the  sun  dropping 
into  the  ocean  beyond;  the  purple  hills;  the  sweep  of 
the  bay  for  fifteen  miles,  on  which  a  white  sail  could 
be  seen,  here  and  there;  and,  later,  the  long  rows  of 
flickering  street-lamps,  revealing  the  cleft  avenues  of 
the  great  city  dipping  toward  the  water  on  the  Opposite 
side  of  the  bay. 

Consider  what  an  investment  accompanies  the-e 
muniments  of  title.  It  is  not  an  acre-lot  and  an  old 
house  merely,  with  several  last  year's  birds'-ncsts  ami 


THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL.  137 

a  vagrant  cat,  but  the  ownership  extends  ninety-five 
millions  of  miles  toward  the  zenith,  and  indefinitely 
toward  the  nadir.  No  one  can,  in  miners'  parlance, 
•get  an  extension  above  or  below.  It  is  a  square  acre, 
bounded  by  heaven  and  hades. 

If  my  neighbor  builds  an  ugly  house,  why  should  I 
find  fault  with  it,  since  it  is  the  expression  of  his 
wants,  and  not  of  mine.  If  these  are  honestly 
expressed,  he  has  compassed  the  main  end  of  house 
building.  He  may  have  produced  something  that 
nobody  in  the  wide  world  will  be  suited  with,  or  wiW 
ever  want  but  himself.  But  if  it  is  adapted  to  his 
wants,  it  is  only  in  some  remote  and  aesthetic  way  that 
his  neighbors  have  anything  to  do  with  the  matter. 
They  may  wish  that  he  had  not  made  it  externally  as 
ugly  as  original  sin  ;  that  he  had  laid  a  heavy  hand  on 
the  antics  of  architect  and  carpenter ;  that  lightning 
would  some  day  strike  the  "  pilot-house,"  or  some 
other  excrescence  which  has  been  glued  on  to  the  top; 
and  that  a  certain  smart  obtrusiveness  were  toned 
down  a  little  to  harmonize  with  a  more  correct  taste. 
But  one  could  not  formulate  these  defects  and  send 
them  to  his  neighbor,  without  running  a  risk  quite 
unwarranted  by  any  good  that  might  be  effected. 


i38  /'///•:  HOI-SI-;  <>N  THE  HILL. 

Taking  possession  of  an  old  house,  its  ugliness  is  to 
be  redeemed,  not  rashly,  but  considerately,  and  in  the 
spirit  of  gentleness.  Its  homeliness  lias  been  con 
secrated  ;  its  doors  may  have  been  the  portals  both  of 
life  and  death.  Possibly,  some  one  has  gone  out  whose 
memory  of  it  in  the  ends  of  the  earth  will  transform  it 
into  something  of  comeliness  and  beauty. 

Investing  an  old  house,  the  first  process  is  to  be 
come  thoroughly  acquainted  with  it,  and  then,  if  it  is 
to  be  enlarged,  push  it  out  from  the  centre  with  such 
angles  as  will  catch  the  sun,  and  will  bring  the  best 
view  within  range  from  the  windows.  It  will  grow  by 
expansions  and  accretions.  You  want  a  bedroom  on 
the  eastern  side,  because  of  the  morning  sun.  By  all 
means,  put  it  there.  The  morning  benediction  which 
comes  in  at  the  window  may  temper  one  to  better 
ways  all  the  day. 

No  man  will  build  a  house  to  suit  his  inmost 
necessities,  unless  he  proceeds  independently  of  all 
modern  rules  of  construction.  Some  of  these  are  good 
enough,  but  they  nearly  all  culminate  in  an  ambitious 
externalism.  The  better  class  of  dwellings  erected 

nty-five    \  >,    contained    broad    stair  < 

.-parlous  sleeping  rooms,  and  a  living-room,  where  the 


THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL.  139 

whole  family  and  the  guests,  withal,  might  gather  at 
the  fire-side.  The  house  was  an  expression  of  hos 
pitality.  The  host  had  room  for  friendships  in  his 
heart,  and  room  at  his  hearthstone.  The  modern 
house,  with  its  stiff  angularities,  narrow  halls,  and 
smart  reception-rooms,  expresses  no  idea  of  hospitality. 
It  warns  the  stranger  to  deliver  his  message  quickly, 
and  be  off.  It  is  well  adapted  to  small  conventional 
hypocrisies,  but  you  will  never  count  the  stars  there 
by  looking  up  the  chimney. 

One  may  search  long  to  find  the  man  who  has  not 
missed  his  aim  in  the  matter  of  house-building.  It  is 
generally  needful  that  two  houses  should  be  built  as  a 
sacrifice  to  sentiment,  and  then  the  third  experiment 
may  be  reasonably  successful.  The  owner  will 
probably  wander  through  the  first  two,  seeking  rest 
and  finding  none.  His  ideal  dwelling  is  more  remote 
than  ever.  There  may  be  a  wealth  of  gilt  and  stucco, 
and  an  excess  of  marble,  which  ought  to  be  piled  up 
in  the  cemetery  for  future  use.  But  the  house  which 
receives  one  as  into  the  very  heaven — which  is,  from 
the  beginning,  invested  with  the  ministries  of  rest,  of 
hospitality,  of  peace — of  that  indefinable  comfort 
which  seems  to  converge  all  the  goodness  of  the  life 


i4o  '/'///;  HOUSE  "A'  •/•///•;  HILL. 

that  now  is  with  the  converging  sunbeams — such  a 
dwelling  does  not  grow  out  of  the  first  crude  experi 
ment.  It  will  never  be  secured  until  one  knows 
better  what  he  really  wants  than  an  architect  or  a 
carpenter  can  tell  him. 

"  Did  you  bring  the  old  house  up  to  this  ideal 
standard  ?  "  Just  about  as  near  as  that  pear  tree,  at 
the  lower  end  of  the  garden,  has  been  brought  up  to  a 
perfect  standard  of  fruiting.  You  perceive  that  where 
half  of  the  top  was  cut  away,  and  new  scions  inserted, 
the  pears  hung  in  groups  and  blushed  in  the  autumnal 
sun.  As  you  let  one  of  them  melt  on  your  palate, 
turn  to  the  other  side  of  the  tree,  and  note  that  if 
ever  a  premium  were  offered  for  puckering,  acrid  fruit, 
these  pears  from  the  original  stock  ought  to  take  it. 

Now,  if  you  graft  your  ideas  on  to  another's,  pre 
mising  that  his  views  were  crude  and  primitive,  the 
result  will  be  somewhat  mixed.  We  should  say  that 
the  grafts  put  into  that  old  house  were  tolerably 
satisfactory.  But  we  counsel  no  friend  to  build  over 
an  old  house,  unless  he  owns  a  productive  gold-mine, 
and  the  bill  of  particulars  at  the  end  of  his  exploit  is 
more  intere^mg  and  gratifying  to  him  than  any 
modern  novel. 


THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL.  141 

There  was,  however,  a  shade  of  regret  when  it  was 
announced  that  nothing  more  remained  to  be  done. 
For  three  months  there  had  been  a  series  of  gentle 
transitions,  and  an  under-current  of  pleasurable  ex 
citement  as  a  door  appeared  in  a  new  place,  a  window 
opened  here  and  there,  stairways  were  cut,  and  old 
pieces  pushed  off  and  new  took  their  places.  It 
seemed  as  if  these  transitions  ought  to  be  always  going 
on,  and,  therefore,  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world 
that  the  carpenters  should  always  be  cutting  or  ham 
mering  that  house.  They  might  grow  old  and  another 
set  take  their  places,  but  there  would  always  be  some 
room  to  enlarge,  or  some  want  growing  out  of  the 
exigencies  of  a  new  day.  Moreover,  the  first  part 
taken  in  hand  would  in  time  decay  or  become  an 
tiquated,  and  why  not  associate  builders  and  house 
together,  since  all  the  jars,  wrenching  of  timbers, 
sawing,  and  hammering  had  become  musical,  and 
seemed  to  be  incorporated  as  the  law  of  the  house  ? 
Nothing  but  financial  considerations  prevented  a 
contract  for  life  with  the  builders,  and  the  life-long 
luxury  of  changing  an  old  house  into  a  new  one. 
There  came  a  day  at  last  of  oppressive  silence. 
Painters  came  down  from  their  ladders ;  the  carpen- 


142  y UK  HOUSE  ON   'nil-:  II ILL. 

ters  packed  up  their  tools  and  walked  thoughtfully 
around,  taking  an  honest  view  on  all  sides  of  a 
structure  which  had  grown  under  their  hands  until, 
outwardly,  there  was  not  the  slightest  semblance  of  the 
old  house  which  they  took  in  hand  some  months 
before.  There  was  a  shade  akin  to  sadness  on  the 
face  of  the  master-workman.  Evidently,  the  idea  of 
ever  leaving  that  house  had  overtaken  him  for  the  first 
time  that  day.  He  had  grown  with  the  house ;  or,  at 
any  rate,  his  children  had  been  growing.  Why  should 
he  not  come  back  on  the  morrow,  and  plumb,  hammer 
and  saw;  creeping  up  the  ladder  with  every  new  day, 
and  sliding  down  with  every  descending  sun? 

The  loftiest  house,  and  the  most  perfect,  in  the 
matter  of  architecture,  I  have  ever  seen,  was  that  which 
a  wood-chopper  occupied  with  his  family  one  winter 
in  the  forests  of  Santa  Cruz  County.  It  was  the 
cavity  of  a  redwood-tree,  two  hundred  and  forty  feet 
in  height.  Fire  had  eaten  away  the  trunk  at  the  base, 
until  a  circular  room  had  been  formed,  sixteen  feet  in 
diameter.  At  twenty  feet  or  more  from  the  ground 
was  ;i  knot-hole,  which  afforded  egress  for  the  Mnoke. 
With  hammocks  hung  from  pegs,  and  a  tew  cooking 
utensils  hung  upon  other  pegs,  that  house  lacked  no 


THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL.  143 

essential  thing.  This  woodman  was  in  possession  of 
a  house  which  had  been  a  thousand  years  in  process 
of  building.  Perhaps  on  the  very  day  it  was  finished 
he  came  along  and  entered  in.  How  did  all  jack- 
knife  and  hand-saw  architecture  sink  into  insignificance 
in  contrast  with  this  house  in  the  solitudes  of  the  great 
forest !  Moreover,  the  tenant  fared  like  a  prince, 
within  thirty  yards  of  his  coniferous  house  a  mountain 
stream  went  rushing  past  to  the  sea.  In  the  swirls 
and  eddies  under  the  shelving  rocks,  if  one  could  not 
land  half-a-dozen  trout  within  an  hour,  he  deserved  to 
go  hungry  as  a  penalty  for  his  awkwardness.  Now 
and  then  a  deer  came  out  into  the  openings,  and,  at 
no  great  distance,  quail,  rabbits,  and  pigeons  could  be 
found.  What  did  this  man  want  more  than  Nature 
furnished  him  ?  He  had  a  house  with  a  "  cupola  " 
two  hundred  and  forty  feet  high,  and  game  at  the  cost 
of  taking  it. 

It  was  a  good  omen,  that  the  chimneys  of  the 
house  on  the  hill  had  not  been  topped-out  more 
than  a  week,  before  two  white  doves  alighted  on 
them,  glancing  curiously  down  into  the  flues,  and 
then  toward  the  heavens.  Nothing  but  the  peace 
which  they  brought  could  have  insured  the  serenity  of 


144  /'///;  HOUSE  ON  /•///•:  ////./,. 

that  house  against  an  untoward  event  which  occured 
a  week  afterward.  Late  one  evening,  the  expressman 
delivered  a  sack  at  the  rear  door,  with  a  note  from  a 
friend  in  the  city,  stating  that  the  writer,  well  knowing 
our  liking  for  thorough-bred  stock,  had  sent  over  one 
of  the  choicest  game-chickens  in  San  Francisco.  The 
qualities  of  that  bird  were  not  overstated.  Such  a 
clean  and  delicately  shaped  head  !  The  long  feathers 
on  his  neck  shaded  from  black  to  green  and  gold. 
His  spurs  were  as  slender  and  sharp  as  lances;  and 
his  carriage  was  that  of  a  prince,  treading  daintily  the 
earth,  as  if  it  were  not  quite  good  enough  for  him. 
There  was  a  world  of  poetry  about  that  chicken,  and 
he  could  also  be  made  to  serve  some  important  uses. 
It  is  essential  that  every  one  dwelling  on  a  hill,  in  the 
suburbs,  should  be  notified  of  the  dawn  of  a  new  day. 
Three  (iovernment  fortifications  in  the  bay  let  off  as 
many  heavy  guns  at  day-break;  and,  as  the  sound 
comes  rolling  in  from  seaward,  the  window-casements 
rattle  responsively.  But  these  guns  do  not  explode 
concurrently;  frequently  more  than  ten  minutes  in- 
ne  from  the  first  report  to  the  last  one.  There 
.  r  a  lingering  uncertainty  as  to  which  is  making  a 
truthful  report,  or  whether  they  are  not  all  shooting 


THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL.  145 

wide  of  the  mark.  Then,  there  is  a  military  school 
close  by,  which  stirs  up  the  youngsters  with  a  reveille, 
a  gong  and  a  bell,  at  short  intervals.  With  so  many 
announcements,  and  none  of  them  concurrent,  there 
would  still  remain  a  painful  uncertainty  as  to  whether 
the  day  had  dawned;  but  when  that  game-bird  lifted 
up  his  voice,  and  sounded  his  clarion  notes  high  over 
the  hill,  above  the  guns  of  Alcatraz  and  the  roll  of 
the  drums  over  the  way,  there  could  be  no  doubt  that 
the  day  was  at  the  dawn. 

For  a  week  did  this  mettlesome  bird  lift  up  his 
voice  above  all  the  meaner  roosters  on  the  hill ;  but 
one  morning  there  was  an  ominous  silence  about  the 
precincts  where  he  was  quartered.  The  Alcatraz  gun 
had  been  let  off;  but  the  more  certain  assurance  of 
the  new  day  had  failed.  Something  had  surely  hap 
pened,  for  a  neighbor  was  seen  hurrying  up  the  walk 
in  the  gray  of  the  morning,  red,  puffy,  and  short  of 
wind,  at  that  unseasonable  hour. 

"Come  with  me,  and  take  a  look  in  my  yard  .  .  . 
There,  is  that  your  blasted  game-chicken  ?  " 

"Why,  yes — no — he  was  sent  over  as  a  present  from 
a  friend." 

Just    then,    the    whole    mischief    was   apparent :    a 


1 46  7 '  HE  HO  U8E  ON  THE  HI  L  L . 

great  Cochin  rooster  was  sneaking  off  toward  the 
hedge,  bloody  and  blind ;  two  Houdans  lay  on  their 
backs,  jerking  their  feet  convulsively — in  short,  that 
hen-yard  had  been  swept  as  with  the  besom  of  des 
truction. 

"Do  you  call  that  a  poetical  or  sentimental  bird, 
such  as  a  Christian  man  ought  to  worship?" 

"  No,  not  exactly." 

Just  then,  that  game-chicken  arched  his  beautiful 
neck,  and  sent  his  clear  notes  high  over  the  hill  and 
into  the  very  heavens.  We  hinted,  in  a  mollifying 
way,  'that  he  had  escaped  over  a  fence  ten  feet 
high ;  but  that  blood  would  tell. 

"  Yes,  I  think  it  has  told  this  morning.  Never 
mind  the  damages ;  but  I  think  you  had  better  cut 
his  wings,"  said  our  neighbor,  already  placated. 

That  bird  was  given  away  before  the  next  sunset. 
Hut  O,  friend!  by  the  guns  of  Alcatraz,  and  the 
white  doves  that  alighted  on  the  chimney-tops,  em 
blems  of  war  and  peace  !  send  us  no  more  game- 
chickens,  to  disturb  the  peace  of  the  hill,  or  to 
finish  the  work  of  destruction  begun  on  that  tinluck) 
morning. 

From    the    hill  one    may    look   out  of  the  (loldcn 


THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL.  147 

Gate  as  through  the  tube  of  a  telescope,  and  see  all 
the  watery  waste  and  eternal  scene-shifting  beyond. 
When  the  dull,  undulating  hummocks  look  like  a 
drove  of  camels  in  the  desert,  you  may  be  sure  that 
the  newly-married  couple  just  embarking  on  the  out 
ward-bound  steamer,  on  a  bridal-tour  to  Los  Angeles 
or  the  Hawaiian  Islands,  will  cease  their  caroling  and 
chirping  within  an  hour.  Half  an  hour  after  sunset, 
if  the  atmosphere  is  clear,  one  may  see  the  wide-off 
light  of  the  Farallones ;  the  nearer  lights  of  Point 
Bonita  and  Alcatraz,  almost  in  line — dwarfed  to  mere 
fire-flies  now ;  but  when  the  Gate  has  lost  the  glow  of 
its  burnished  gold,  these  great  sea-lamps,  hung  over 
this  royal  avenue,  tell  an  honest  home  story  for  the 
battered  ships  low  down  on  the  horizon. 

The  little  tugs  which  round  under  the  quarters  of 
the  great  wheat  ships  and  rush  them  out  to  sea,  know 
how  to  overcome  the  inertia  of  the  great  hulks.  They 
tug  spitefully,  but  the  ship  has  to  move,  and  you  see 
the  white  sails  already  beginning  to  fall  down  from  the 
yards,  for  the  work  where  the  blue  water  begins.  It 
may  be  a  grotesque  association,  but  have  you  never 
seen  a  small  woman,  with  a  wonderful  concentration 
of  energy,  tug  her  great,  lazy  hulk  of  a  husband  out 


148  /'//A'  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL 

into  the  broad  field  of  earnest  endeavor  in  much  the 
same  way?  Once  there,  his  inertia  overcome,  the 
feminine  tow-line  cast  off,  he  did  brave  and  honest 
work,  making  the  race  quite  abreast  of  average  men. 
But  the  woman,  who  tugged  him  from  his  la/y 
anchorage  out  into  a  good  offing,  did  as  much  for  that 
man  as  he  ever  did  for  himself.  Nothing  more  for 
tunate  can  happen  to  a  great  many  men  than  that  they 
be  towed  out  to  sea  early.  And  in  not  a  few  instan 
ces,  nothing  more  unfortunate  could  happen  than  that 
they  should  ever  return.  This  last  remark  would 
have  been  softened  a  little,  had  it  not  been  repeated 
with  emphasis  by  a  tender-hearted  woman. 

Just  after  a  winter  rain,  there  are  occasionally  real 
istic  views  of  the  great  city  in  the  foreground,  which 
are  so  ugly  that  one  never  forgets  them.  The  hills 
arc  brought  nigh,  all  the  houses  seem  to  rise  out  of 
the  desert,  and,  along  the  water-front,  the  spars  of 
shipping  look  like  a  forest  which  has  been  blasted  by 
some  devouring  flame.  It  is  certain  that  these  for 
ests  will  never  sprout  again  ;  and  there  is  such  a  dead 
look,  that  were  it  not  for  the  little  tugs  going  back  and 
forth,  one  might  imagine  that  all  men  had  hastened 
away,  and  left  the  city  to  silence  and  the  desert.  Hut 


THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL.  149 

after  nightfall,  the  thousand  lamps  glorify  the  city ; 
the  blackened  forest  along  the  water-front  has  faded 
out,  and  a  mild  sort  of  charity  steals  over  one,  sug 
gesting  that,  after  all,  it  is  a  goodly  city,  set  upon  a 
hill,  and  that  its  peculiar  beauty  is  not  alone  in  ap 
pearing  to  the  best  advantage  by  gaslight.  The  back 
ground  of  hills  is  more  angular  and  jerky  than  ever 
before,  because  all  the  softening  effect  has  been  taken 
out  of  the  atmosphere.  There  is  no  distance,  no 
dreamy  haze  to  spread  like  a  gossamer  vail  over  these 
hard  outlines.  Nature  is  wonderfully  honest  and  self- 
revealing.  Evidently,  these  hills  were  never  finished. 
They  lack  all  the  rounded  beauty,  all  the  gentle 
curves  and  slopes,  and  all  the  fine  touches  of  a  per 
fected  work.  They  look  as  if,  when  in  a  plastic  state, 
they  had  been  set  by  the  jerk  of  an  earthquake.  Who 
knows  but  another  jerk  might  take  these  kinks  out 
and  tone  down  all  these  stiff  angles;  and  otherwise  put 
on  the  finishing  touches  ?  If  it  must  be  done  in  this 
way,  let  the  softening  undulations  be  as  gentle  as  pos 
sible.  It  is  very  inconvenient  to  get  up  in  the  morn 
ing  and  find  that  the  chimney-top  is  either  on  the  gar 
den  walk,  or  that  it  has  been  turned  three-quarters 
round,  in  the  very  wantonness  and  devilment  of  Nature. 


150  THE  HOUXE  ON  THE  HILL. 

Some  day  there  will  be  a  closer  recognized  rela 
tion  between  landscape  gardening  and  landscape 
painting.  If  the  work  is  done  badly  in  either  depart 
ment,  it  will  make  little  difference  whether  an  acre  of 
canvas  is  hung  upon  the  wall,  or  whether  lines  have 
been  badly  drawn  and  colors  crudely  laid  on  to  an 
acre  of  earth.  The  style  of  trimming  trees  so  that 
they  are  a  libel  on  Nature,  and  the  geometrical  dia 
grams  worked  up  in  a  garden,  can  hardly  be  referred 
to  any  very  high  standard  of  art.  But  if  my  neighbor 
is  delighted  with  trees  representing  spindles,  ramrods, 
paint-brushes,  cylinders,  cones,  and  what  not,  I  would 
no  more  quarrel  with  him  than  with  the  man  who  is 
under  the  pleasing  delusion  that  he  is  an  artist,  be 
cause,  in  a  more  remote  way,  he  has  been  traducing 
nature  with  certain  grotesque  figures  laid  on  to  canvas. 

A  hedge  will  bear  cutting  into  line,  because  it  is  to 
be  treated  as  nothing  more  than  the  frame  of  the 
landscape  to  be  worked  up.  The  former  may  be  as 
stiff  and  artificial  in  its  way,  as  a  gilt  or  mahogany 
frame,  and  do  no  violence  to  good  taste;  if  it  hides  an 
ugly  fence,  a  point  has  been  gained.  One  can  not  ex 
pert  much  diversity  of  surface  on  a  single  acre.  A 
large  lawn  will  give  the  effect  of  greater  flatness.  If 


THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL.  151 

you  find  the  hired  gardener,  bred  in  some  noted 
school  in  Europe,  setting  out  trees  in  straight  lines, 
exhort  him  to  penitence  at  once.  If  he  remain  ob 
durate,  cut  the  trees  down  with  your  little  hatchet, 
and  pitch  them  over  the  fence ;  but  keep  your  temper 
as  sweet  as  a  June  morning.  He  will  see  by  that  time 
that  you  have  ideas  to  be  respected.  Grouping  the 
trees,  on  the  lawn  and  elsewhere,  neutralizes,  in  part, 
the  effect  of  a  flat  surface  ;  it  is  better  than  the  poor 
apology  of  a  little  hillock,  which  suggests  an  ant's- 
nest,  or  that  a  coyote  may  be  burrowing  in  that  vicin 
ity.  Something  may  be  done  in  the  way  of  massing 
colors  with  annuals  to  produce  good  effects.  But  rib 
bon-gardening,  according  to  the  patterns  laid  down  by 
florists,  has  no  nearer  relation  to  art  in  landscape- 
gardening  than  crochet  work  has  to  landscape-paint 
ing.  It  is  a  fantastic  trick,  which  may  very  well  please 
rural  clowns,  but  is  in  some  sort  an  offense  to  good 
taste. 

Neither  is  it  necessary  that  all  the  trees  and  shrubs 
which  a  florist  has  for  sale,  should  be  admitted  to  the 
private  garden.  More  than  one-half  of  them  have  no 
merit ;  they  neither  set  off  the  grounds,  nor  have  any 
peculiarity  worth  a  moment's  attention.  They  figure 


152  '/'///•;  /fofrsK  <)\   Till']  HILL. 

in  the  florists'  list  under  very  attractive  names,  but  if 
taken  home,  they  will  probably  prove  but  scrubby  lit 
tle  bushes,  fit  only  to  be  dedicated  to  the  rubbish-heap 
and  the  annual  bon-fire  in  the  spring.  A  plant  or  a 
shrub  which  gives  no  pleasure  either  in  its  form  or  the 
color  of  its  flower,  and  has  no  suggestive  associations, 
may  do  well  enough  for  a  botanical  garden.  Many  of 
us  may  like  occasionally  to  look  at  a  hippopotamus  or 
an  elephant  in  the  menagerie,  or  at  the  zoological  gar 
dens,  but  we  don't  want  these  specimens  brought 
home  to  our  private  grounds.  Some  of  the  sequoia 
gig antca  family  do  very  well  in  the  forest.  Once  in 
a  lifetime  we  can  afford  to  make  a  journey  to  look  at 
them.  But  why  undertake  to  bring  home  one  of  these 
vegetable  elephants  as  a  specimen,  when  we  know  that 
it  will  require  a  thousand  years  for  its  growth,  and 
that  most  of  us  will  come  a  little  short  of  that  measure 
of  time  ?  Some  trees  may  be  planted  for  posterity, 
and  others  may  be  safely  left  to  take  their  chances. 
If  any  one  wishes  to  contemplate  upon  his  grounds 
a  shrub  of  the  future  dimensions  of  one  of  the  Cala- 
verus  group,  let  him  plant  it  at  once.  Most  of  the 
vegetable  monsters  went  out  with  the  ichth\  osiuirus, 
and  as  for  the  few  that  remain,  they  will  yet  be  an 


THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL.  153 

affront   to    the   pigmies   which  are    swarming   on  the 
earth. 

"  Why  did  we  plant  cherry-trees  along  the  rear 
fence  ? "  To  make  friends  with  the  birds  and  the 
children.  You  can  get  more  songs  from  the  birds, 
and  more  of  song  and  glee  from  the  children  on  a 
small  investment  in  cherry-trees,  than  in  any  other 
way.  Those  last-year's'  birds'-nests  tell  the  story. 
The  robin,  thrash,  oriole,  and  linnet,  will  come  early 
and  stay  late.  Groups  of  children  will  come  in  the 
front  way,  and  will  never  be  so  happy  as  when  invited 
to  go  down  the  rear  garden  walk,  unless  in  the  su- 
premest  moments  when  they  step  from  your  shoulders 
into  the  trees,  and  never  come  back  until  they  have 
closed  their  fingers  on  the  last  cherry.  The  man  who 
is  not  satisfied  to  divide  all  his  cherries  with  the  birds 
and  the  children,  is  a  curmudgeon ;  notably  so  is  he 
who  plants  cherry-trees  in  front  of  his  lot,  and  gets 
into  a  white-heat  of  rage  because  boys  of  average  Sun 
day-school  antecedents  could  not  resist  the  temptation 
to  borrow  the  fruit.  Besides,  the  eclectic  judgment  of 
children,  the  sparrow,  the  yellow  jacket,  and  the  honey 
bee,  will  always  tell  you  where  the  best  nectarines  and 
plums  may  be  found. 


154  THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL, 

It  is  well  to  reserve  a  nook  for  little  experiments  in 
horticulture  or  floriculture  which  one  wishes  to  make. 
A  great  many  theories  may  be  brought  home  and 
decently  buried,  or  be  made  to  sprout  in  such  a  cor 
ner.  The  larger  the  spaces,  the  more  one  will  be 
tempted  to  use  the  spade  at  odd  hours ;  and  none  of 
us  has  yet  found  out  all  the  remedial  qualities  of  dry 
earth  freshly  turned  over,  day  after  day.  A  hard  day's 
work,  taxing  brain  more  than  hands,  brings  on  a  de 
gree  of  nervous  irritability.  There  is  a  dry  electrical 
atmosphere ;  the  attrition  of  trade  winds  and  sand 
half  the  year;  and  the  rushing  to  and  fro  of  busy  and 
excited  men,  charged  as  full  of  electricity  as  they  can 
hold,  and  bent  upon  charging  everybody  else,  so  that 
at  night-fall  the  sparks  will  snap  at  the  finger-ends,  and 
thelair  will  crackle  like  a  brush-heap  just  set  on  fire. 
Now,  the  earth  is  a  very  good  conductor.  It  is  better 
to  let  this  surplus  electricity  run  down  the  fingers  on 
to  the  spade,  and  along  its  shining  steel  blade  into  the 
ground,  than  to  blow  up  your  best  friend.  An  hour 
of  honest  battle  with  the  weeds  is  better  than  any  do 
mestic  thunder-storm.  By  that  time  the  sun  will  have 
dropped  down  into  the  ocean,  just  beyond  the  Golden 
.  glorifying  garden  and  hill-top,  and  setting,  for  a 


THE  HOUSE  ON  THE  HILL. 

moment,  its  lamp  of  flame  in  the  western  window. 
Every  plant  and  shrub  will  have  some  part  in  a  subtile 
and  soothing  ministry;  and  then,  if  ever,  it  will  occur 
to  you  that  this  is  a  mellow  old  world,  after  all. 


THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL. 


THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL. 


IT  was  a  plausible  theory,  and  given  out  in  a 
demure  and  confiding  way  by  a  feminine  oracle,  that 
honeysuckle  cuttings  should  each  be  inserted  in 
a  potato,  and  so  planted.  As  the  scion  had  no  root 
and  needed  moisture,  it  would  be  supplied  by  the 
potato.  It  seemed  the  very  thing  to  do.  The 
wonder  was  that  so  simple  an  expedient  had  not  been 
suggested  before.  That  theory  was  honestly  tested, 
and  it  has  since  been  laid  on  the  top  shelf  with  a  great 
many  other  feminine  theories  about  floriculture. 
Twenty  honeysuckle  scions  were  each  planted  with 
one  end  in  an  enormous  red  potato.  Never  did  one 
of  those  honeysuckles  grow;  but  there  sprung  up  such 
a  growth  of  potatoes  as  never  had  been  seen  on  the 
hill.  They  were  under  the  door-step,  under  the  foun 
dation  of  the  house;  they  shot  up  everywhere.  Was 
that  the  last  of  the  misadventure  ?  By  no  manner  of 
means.  In  the  very  porch  of  the  church  that  daugh- 


i6o  /•///•;  QABDMN  ».\  nn-:  HILL. 

ter  of  Eve  inquired  slily,  "How  are  your  honey 
suckles?"  And  then  she  glided  in  as  if  she  had 
done  nothing  for  which  she  needed  forgiveness. 

Certain  grafting  experiments  came  out  a  shade 
better.  Hut  every  graft  put  in  on  the  south  side  of  a 
tree  died,  while  those  on  the  north  side  nearly  all 
lived.  These  were  protected  by  some  degree  of  shade, 
while  the  hot  sun  melted  the  wax  on  the  south  side, 
which  ran  down  in  liquid  streams  of  resin,  and 
poisoned  the  bark  around  the  cleft.  All  this  might 
have  been  known  in  advance.  But  a  little  modicum 
of  knowledge  learned  by  costly  experience  will  stick 
to  one  through  life,  while  that  which  costs  nothing  is 
rarely  laid  up  as  worth  having.  It  ought  to  be  known, 
also,  that  there  is  no  better  plan  of  grafting  a  tree 
than  that  which  our  ancestors  followed  a  hundred 
years  ago,  when,  with  a  little  moist  clay  and  top  tow, 
every  scion  inserted  lived.  Then  the  cider-mill  was 
an  orthodox  institution  in  every  -neighborhood.  It  is 
not  worth  your  while  to  dissent  from  that  proposition, 
when  you  have  probably  played  truant  from  a  summer 
school  to  ride  around  on  the  sweep  of  a  cider-mill, 
and  suck  the  new  cider  through  a  straw,  being  stung 
the  meanwhile  occasionally  by  a  "yellow-jacket." 


THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL.  161 

Even  now  a  cider-mill  by  the  roadside,  with  the  sour 
pomace  scattered  about,  is  a  humanizing  institution. 
It  will  send  you  back  to  the  old  orchard,  the  great 
branching  elm,  and  the  wide-spreading  roof  slanting 
down  in  the  rear,  quicker  than  any  other  sign  or  sym 
bol  to  be  found  along  the  dusty  way  of  middle  life. 
For  one  hour's  ride  on  that  sweep,  and  a  nibble  at  the 
spice-apples  sliding  down  the  hopper,  one  might  still 
be  consoled  for  the  dreadful  frown  of  the  school  mis 
tress,  and  for  that  feminine  refinement  on  purgatorial 
cruelty  which  compelled  the  truant  to  stand  for  an 
hour  on  one  leg,  and  to  hold  out  a  bible  at  arm's- 
length  in  his  dexter  hand.  An  acidulated  school 
mistress,  who  had  been  losing  her  sweetness  for  forty 
years,  never  was  a  desirable  object  to  meet,  after  hav 
ing  tasted  the  sweets  on  a  summer  day  at  a  cider- 
mill.  The  hornets  were  well  enough  in  their  way, 
but  the  sting  of  that  school-mistress  was  not. 

Note,  too,  that  this  grafting  process  reaches  over 
beyond  your  apple-trees.  The  best  races,  or  subdivi 
sions  of  people,  come  of  the  best  stocks  which  are 
continually  grafted  on.  Your  blue-blood  is  mixed 
with  more  not  so  blue,  or  the  stock  runs  out.  Down 
at  the  root  of  those  apple-trees  yonder,  you  may  find 


162  y///;  HARDEN  ON  Till-:  II 11. 1. 

traces  of  the  woolly  aphis.  It  is  a  sign  that  the  con 
stitution  of  such  trees  has  been  weakened.  Digging 
down  you  remove  the  aphis,  put  fresh  soil  around  the 
tree,  scrape  the  rusty  trunk,  cut  off  the  top,  and  put  in 
two  or  three  grafts  from  a  stock  that  has  vitality  ;  and 
very  soon  this  rejuvenated  tree,  bending  under  its 
weight  of  fruit  in  early  autumn,  is  something  of  which 
no  amateur  horticulturist  need  be  ashamed.  A 
thoroughbred  people  will  impress  language,  law,  and 
custom  as  none  other  can  upon  the  world.  It  is  not 
isolation  which  secures  this  result,  but  the  taking  of 
many  stocks  upon  the  natural  trunk.  If  pulmonary 
New  England  is  to  be  physically  resuscitated,  it  will 
not  come  of  boasting  of  revolutionary  sires,  but  rather 
because  Germans,  Irish,  1  )ancs  and  Swedes  are 
thronging  all  the  avenues  of  her  busy  life. 

The  transition  from  grafting  to  budding  is  natural 
enough.  Those  twenty  white  stakes  stand  as  so  many 
monuments  of  another  horticultural  disaster.  On  a 
September  day,  twenty  buds,  so  rare  that  the  original 
stock  could  not  be  bought  at  any  price,  had  been 
deftly  slipped  into  as  many  "suckers,"  which  had 
come  out  from  the  roots  of  as  many  rose  bushes. 
The  next  spring  they  were  set  and  staked,  and  ea<  h 


THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL.  163 

was  about  as  precious  as  the  right  eye  of  any  amateur 
horticulturist.  The  small  buds  had  developed  into 
branches  afoot  long;  great  double  peerless  roses  had 
been  hanging  pendent  from  the  original  stocks — roses 
with  regal  names  and  titles.  There  would  have  been 
twenty  glorified  specimens  of  floriculture  to-day,  but 
for  that  foreign  gardener  who  had  been  "educated  in 
the  best  schools  in  Europe,"  who  knew  everything, 
and  could  not  be  told  anything.  Roses  must  be  cut 
in  to  make  new  wood.  Before  night  he  had  clipped 
those  twenty  standards  each  below  the  bud,  and  had 
taken  himself  off  with  his  diabolical  shears,  his  insuf 
ferable  conceit,  and  his  rustic  innocence.  He  never 
came  back  to  look  at  the  work  of  his  hands,  nor  to 
hear  the  wish  mildly  expressed  that  a  pair  of  shears 
might  be  invented  which  would  shorten  the  stature  of 
that  gardener  at  least  a  foot.  There  was  a  special 
aggravation  of  the  case,  because  we  had  been  nursing 
a  theory  for  years,  that  by  splitting  two  rose-germs  of 
different  kinds,  and  putting  the  odd  halves  together,  if 
growth  could  then  be  induced,  there  would  be  a 
hybrid  rose — either  the  color  of  the  one  would  be 
distinct  on  one  side,  and  the  other  on  the  opposite 
side,  or  the  rose  would  be  mottled,  having  red  and 


164  '/'///•;  i;Ai:ni-:N  <>\  Tin:  HILL. 

white  spots  on  each  leaf.  This  Siamese  bud  had 
started  finely.  Bad  luck  to  the  gardener's  shears 
which  abbreviated  that  experiment,  and  enveloped  the 
vexed  question  again  in  darkness.  But  here  is  a  bed 
of  mottled  pinks,  and  these  could  have  all  been  the 
result  of  crosses.  It  may  be  that  the  humming-birds, 
going  from  one  blossom  to  another,  have  mixed  the 
pollen ;  or  some  hidden  law  may  be  active  which  can 
not  be  traced.  Note,  too,  that  besides  this  promis 
cuous  fleck  of  red  and  white,  in  not  a  few  instances  a 
single  flower  will  have  the  red  on  one  half  and  the 
white  on  the  other.  The  florists  call  this  sporting. 
The  same  class  of  facts  may  be  observed  in  the 
double  petunias,  all  of  which  are  hybrids,  or  nearly  so— 
a  purple,  white,  and  red  leaf  being  found  in  a  single 
flower.  There  are  apples,  too,  or  there  were  twent) 
years  ago,  one  half  of  which  were  sour  and  the  other 
half  sweet.  The  qualities  were  not  interblended,  and 
even  the  COlOfS  were  separate. 

It  was  a  pretty  conceit,  and  mollifying  withal,  that  a 
feminine  florist  connected  with  panties  :  "  When  you 
go  past  them  they  will  turn  their  heads  toward  you, 
greeting  you  so  lovingly."  That  little  myth  might  be 
strung  on  the  same  string  with  the  buttercup,  which 


THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL.  165 

only  reflects  its  golden  hue  upon  the  chins  of  those 
who  love  June  butter. 

That  alfalfa  experiment  is  only  admitted  by  special 
grace  under  the  head  of  floriculture,  although  the 
lucerne  has  no  lack  of  handsome  blossoms.  A  little 
seed  was  sprinkled  on  the  ground  after  the  spring 
rains  and  forgotten.  When  the  winter  rains  came 
again,  that  alfalfa  reached  out  for  both  the  zenith  and 
nadir.  Three  times  a  year  it  is  cut  to  keep  it  from 
falling  down.  The  details  are  suppressed  here,  with 
only  an  intimation  that  they  are  sufficient  for  several 
agricultural  addresses.  If  that  man  is  a  benefactor 
who  has  made  two  blades  of  grass  grow  in  the  place 
of  one,  what  is  he  who  has  made  alfalfa  shoot  up  at 
the  rate  of  seven  tons  to  tne  acre,  in  the  place  of  mis 
erable  sorrel-top  ?  But  there  was  a  discount  upon 
that  experiment.  The  alfalfa  drew  to  it  all  the  gophers 
in  the  neighborhood.  They  mined  and  countermined, 
until  the  whole  area  had  been  honeycombed.  They 
multiplied  by  scores  and  hundreds.  These  rodents 
drew  together  all  the  vagrant  cats  in  the  neighbor 
hood,  which  made  this  corner  of  the  garden  a  com 
mon  hunting-ground.  Here  upon  this  small  area  was 
a  crop  of  alfalfa,  a  crop  of  gophers — which  no  man 


166  /'///;  HARD  EN  <t\    I'lli:  Ull.  L. 

has  numbered  to  this  day — and  a  crop  of  cats  as 
fiercely  predatory  and  as  unrelenting  in  a  skirmish  as 
were  ever  put  in  battle  array.  Hut  somehow  this 
experiment  has  not  been  satisfactory.  It  has  branched 
out  in  too  many  ways.  Two  empty  arnica  bottles  sug 
gest  the  muscular  strains  which  came  from  moderating 
those  cats  with  an  occasional  volley  of  rocks.  And  at 
this  writing,  half  a  dozen  felines  are  on  the  fence 
looking  solemnly  down  at  the  sapping  and  mining 
which  is  going  on  below. 

There  are  no  birds  in  this  region  which  domesticate 
so  readily  as  the  linnets,  and  which  improve  more 
on  an  intimate  acquaintance.  They  are  not  so 
obstreperous  as  the  wren,  nor  so  shy  as  the  lark 
and  the  robin.  The  latter  is  a  migratory  bird, 
coming  down  to  this  lattitude  only  in  the  winter,  and 
^oin^  north  for  a  nesting  in  the  spring.  A  single 
robin  has  lived  in  the  garden  all  winter,  becoming 
nearly  as  tame  as  a  chicken,  following  the  man  with 
the  spading  fork,  and  snapping  up  the  worms  in  a 
sharp  competition  with  his  cousin,  the  brown  thrush. 
The  former,  in  place  of  any  soni^,  has  a  lonesome  and 
ive  call,  as  though  waiting  fur  his  mate.  He  is 
probably  a  bachelor,  who  has  not  yet  set  up  an  estab 


THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL.  167 

lishment  of  his  own.  A  little  girl,  having  gravely  con 
sidered  the  case,  suggests  that  he  ought  to  send  a  let 
ter  inviting  a  mate  to  come.  O !  my  little  friend,  oral 
communication  is  much  more  interesting;  at  least,  it 
was  so  in  my  time.  Neither  was  it  considered  coward 
ice  if  the  heart  came  up  into  the  throat. 

The  linnets  are  model  birds  in  their  domestic  life. 
A  pair  built  a  nest  last  year  under  the  porch,  and, 
having  brought  up  one  family  of  four  and  dismissed 
them,  the  pair  furbished  up  the  nest  again, and  brought 
up  a  family  of  four  more  the  same  season.  They 
have  held  secret  conferences  over  the  nest  recently, 
and  it  evidently  falls  in  with  their  views  of  domestic 
economy  to  use  it  again.  It  is  possible  that  they 
appreciated  a  little  device  which  we  had  to  adopt  for 
their  safety.  As  the  nest  was  at  the  extremity  of  a 
festoon  of  vines,  there  was  nothing  to  hinder  the 
house-cat  from  going  up  and  feasting  on  callow  birds. 
And  odd  lot  of  trout-hooks,  fastened  to  the  lower 
vines,  operated  as  a  powerful  non-conductor. 

Some  years  ago,  a  pair  of  linnets  having  made  their 
nest  in  the  porch  of  another  house,  everything  went 
well  until  the  young  had  just  appeared;  then  the 
mother  disappeared  one  night,  and  the  displaced  vines 


i68  y///:  <;ARDEN  ON  THK  HILL. 

in  the  morning  told  the  whole  story.  Four  orphan 
birds  appealed  to  the  sympathies  of  the  young  folk. 
The  nest  was  taken  into  the  house,  the  birds  carefully 
covered  with  cotton,  and  every  effort  was  made  to 
save  them.  They  would  eat  nothing,  and,  as  a  last 
resort,  the  nest  was  replaced  in  the  vines.  The  father 
came  back  soon,  talked  with  his  children,  brooded 
them,  fed  them  day  after  day,  brought  them  up  to 
maturity,  and  turned  out  as  prosperous  a  family  of 
young  linnets  as  there  was  in  that  neighborhood.  Mr. 
Linnet  can  have  the  most  positive  certificate  of  rare 
domestic  virtues.  There  is  the  slight  drawback  that 
he  paints,  does  all  the  singing,  and  is  rather  vain; 
while  Mrs.  Linnet  is  a  plain,  unassuming  bird,  always 
clad  in  gray,  and  is  not  up  in  music.  All  through  the 
realm  of  ornithology  the  male  bird  has  the  brightest 
colors  and  does  the  singing.  Hut  analogy  is  all  at 
fault  when  you  come  to  men  and  women.  Who  puts 
on  all  the  bright  colors  here,  paints,  and  carols  upon 
the  topmost  bough  of  the  domestic  tree?  15y  what 
law  has  this  order  been  reversed?  And  yet  the 
sum  of  your  political  economy  is,  that  a  woman 
who  can  dress  more,  use  pigments  more  cunningly, 
and  talk  faster,  and  sin-  better  than  a  man,  shall 


THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL.  169 

not   vote  !      Is   that   the   way  to   set   up   your  ideal 
republic? 

One  may  learn  secrets  of  ornithology  in  the  garden 
which  the  books  will  not  yield  up.  That  boy  coming 
up  the  rear  garden  walk,  who  has  swung  himself  into 
a  pear-tree  to  look  into  the  nest  of  a  finch,  has  done 
the  same  thing  consecutively  on  a  dozen  mornings. 
He  will  be  able  to  tell  just  how  many  days  are 
required  for  incubation,  and  how  many  days  intervene, 
before  the  birds  are  full-fledged.  I  should  have  had 
more  hope  for  him  as  a  future  ornithologist,  had  not 
the  young  heathen  asked  for  the  eggs  to  put  upon  his 
string.  There  is  not  such  a  great  difference,  after  all, 
between  an  Apache  with  a  string  of  scalps  at  his  belt, 
and  a  school-boy  with  his  string  of  bird's-eggs.  If  it 
were  not  for  that  infernal  cruelty  which  has  been  inbred 
by  false  teaching,  or  no  teaching,  our  relations  with  all 
the  lower  forms  of  life  would  be  intimate  and  confi 
dential,  instead  of  suspicious  and  oftentimes  revolting. 
One  can  match  the  worst  specimens  of  cannibalism  by 
pointing  out  strings  of  larks  hung  up  by  their  bills  any 
day  in  the  market.  I  know  of  no  cannibal  who  ever 
became  ferocious  enough  to  eat  singing-birds,  or  to 
find  pleasure  in  killing  them. 


i7o  /•///;  <;AI;IH-:N  <*\  mi-:  HILL. 

There  are  two  or  three  notes  in  the  song  of  the  lark 
which  are  not  surpassed  in  sweetness  by  any  of  the 
oriole  or  finch  family.  If  one  will  take  a  dash  into  the 
country  some  bright  morning,  on  horseback,  and  note 
how  this  joyous  bird  goes  before  him,  alighting  on  the 
fence  and  calling  down  a  benediction  from  the 
heavens,  either  he  will  come  back  filled  with  gladness, 
or  his  liver  trouble  has  got  the  better  of  him.  All  the 
song-birds  of  much  note  in  this  State  may  be  assigned 
to  the  three  families  of  thrushes,  orioles  and  finches. 
In  the  first  of  these  we  have  the  robin;  in  the  second, 
the  lark;  and  in  the  third,  the  linnet.  The  subfamilies 
will  reach  nearly  a  hundred,  and  there  is  not  one  of 
them  which  will  not  pay  in  songs  and  in  the  destruc 
tion  of  insects  for  all  the  mischief  he  does.  Now,  a 
bird  that  pays  his  bills  in  advance,  has  a  right  to  pro 
tection.  Observe,  too,  how  soon  they  recognize  any 
attempt  to  establish  friendly  relations  with  them.  Last 
year  a  finch  had  her  feet  entangled  by  a  string  with 
which  she  had  lined  her  nest.  A  little  help  rendered 
to  set  her  free,  made  her  an  intimate  friend,  and  a 
shallow  pan  of  water  in  the  grass  drew  daily  divi 
dends  of  fresh  songs.  A  bo\  with  a  few  holes  in  it, 
set  on  a  post,  will  not  remain  empty  a  year;  either 


THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL.  171 

the    blue-birds    or  the   martins  will   take  possession 
of  it. 

A  garden  ought  to  be  planned  as  much  for  the  birds 
as  for  lawns  and  flowers.  The  hedges  will  afford 
hiding-places  for  timid  birds,  and  shade  on  hot  days. 
The  tall  trees  will  furnish  perches  when  they  want  to 
sing ;  and  a  well-fed  bird,  that  has  no  family  trouble 
on  hand,  wants  to  sing  nearly  all  his  leisure  time.  As 
for  the  cherries  and  small  fruits,  the  birds  are 
only  gentle  communists.  If  we  can  not  tolerate  a 
division  made  with  all  the  inspiration  of  song,  and 
which  leaves  us  at  least  one  side  of  the  cherry,  how 
are  we  to  tolerate  that  division  predicted  by  some  of 
the  labor  prophets,  if  made  with  the  music  of  paving- 
stones  and  much  fragile  crockery? 

One  can  not  go  far  into  the  woods  in  any  direction 
without  observing  what  a  protest  all  the  birds  utter  at 
first.  There  are  harsh  screams,  sharp  notes  of  warn 
ing,  and  general  scolding.  Now,  every  bird  has  a 
great  deal  of  curiosity  to  take  a  look  at  strangers. 
For  a  time  they  flit  about  in  the  tall  tree-tops,  and 
afterward  begin  to  hop  down  to  lower  limbs,  and, 
gradually  descending,  come  to  the  ground,  or  on  to 
low  bushes.  By  remaining  quiet  an  hour  or  two,  a 


172  THBQARDBN  <>.y  Till:  HILL 

doxen  or  more  will  circle  around  within  a  few  feet, 
turning  their  heads  on  one  side  occasionally,  and 
qui/iing  in  a  saucy,  merry  way.  In  a  little  while  one 
may  be  on  intimate  terms  with  the  very  birds  which 
protested  so  loudly  at  his  coming.  They  will  tell  him 
a  great  many  secrets.  The  leaves  of  his  book  on 
ornithology  may  be  a  quarter  of  a  mile  square,  but 
what  can  not  be  read  on  one  day  may  be  read  on  some 
other.  Even  an  owl  burrowing  with  aground-squirrel, 
and  both  agreeing  very  well  as  tenants  in  common 
with  a  rattlesnake,  may  suggest  questions  of  affinity 
and  community  which  it  might  be  inconvenient  to 
answer  at  once.  If  you  prefer  to  have  some  readings 
in  the  book  of  nature,  you  can  turn  down  a  leaf  and 
go  back  the  next  day  with  the  certainty  that  "no  one 
has  lugged  off  the  volume.  And  if  your  finger-mark  is 
a  tree  250  feet  high,  there  will  be  no  great  difficulty  in 
finding  the  place. 

Hut  a  garden  of  a  single  acre  can  only  be  at  most, 
a  diamond  edition  of  nature.  A  great  deal  must  be 
left  out.  The  owl,  as  a  singing  bird  is  not  wanted  ; 
and,  although  tadpoles  may  be  raised  in  the  little  fish 
pond,  it  is  nut  expected  that  the  hippopotamus  will  come 
there  to  wallow.  The  bird*  must  of  necessity  be  few 


THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL.  173 

and  select.  If  the  lark  sometimes  sings  at  sunrise  on 
the  lower  fence,  and  the  thrush  and  the  linnet  bid  you 
good  morning  out  of  the  nearest  tree-tops,  you  will 
not  fail  to  respond,  unless  on  that  particular  morning 
when  you  especially  need  an  extract  of  dandelion  ; 
and  that  will  generally  happen  when  the  golden 
blossoms  can  be  found  along  the  way-side.  It  might 
be  well,  also,  to  leave  a  little  nook  for  sage  and 
worm-wood.  They  are  not  only  handsome  plants  in 
their  way,  but  the  average  wisdom  of  any  grand 
mother  will  unfold  their  remedial  properties. 

There  are  seven  well-defined  species  of  humming 
birds  to  be  found  in  this  State,  and  two  or  three  more 
not  described,  except  in  the  unpublished  notes  of 
Grayson.  None  of  these  birds  are  singers ;  the  best 
they  can  do  is  to  make  a  noise  like  the  turning  of  a 
small  ratchet-wheel.  But  somehow,  this  ungenial, 
obstreperous  little  bird,  darting  in  a  saucy  way  close 
to  one's  ears  and  then  balancing  over  a  flower,  never 
ceases  to  excite  interest.  He  might  have  dropped  out 
of  Paradise,  if  it  were  not  for  his  temper,  which  lacks 
any  heavenly  quality,  and  for  his  song,  which  would 
soon  raise  a  mutiny  above  or  below.  He  is  a  half 
unreal  bird ;  and  we  do  not  know  what  soul  in  a 


174  THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL. 

transition  state  may  be  lodged  in  his  little  body. 
There  are  a  great  many  souls  small  enough  to  occupy 
it.  Now,  the  house-cat  had  been  taught  after  a  long 
time  to  respect  birds,  and  that  to  look  longingly  at  a 
humming-bird  was  something  akin  to  sacrilege.  But 
original  sin,  or  instinct,  was  always  ready  to  break  out 
at  the  sight  of  a  humming-bird.  One  evening  she 
trotted  down  the  garden  walk  with  head  up  and  a 
diminutive  bird  in  her  mouth.  It  took  a  lively  turn 
of  three  times  or  more  around  that  acre  lot  to  over 
haul  that  cat;  nor  was  it  done  until  the  pursuer  was 
thoroughly  red  in  the  face  and  blown,  having  just 
strength  enough  left  to  gripe  her  by  the  throat  and 
make  her  let  go.  It  was  the  poorest  job  of  bird- 
philanthropy  ever  done  in  that  garden.  There  was 
nothing  to  reward  a  merciful  man  but  a  humming 
miller,  of  just  the  size  and  finish,  from  bill  to  wings,  of 
a  humming-bird,  but  only  an  ugly  bug  as  to  his 
posterior  half — a  creature  with  his  head  and  wings 
over  in  the  realms  of  ornithology,  and  the  rest  of  his 
ugly  body  still  in  the  field  of  entomology.  The 
quality  of  mercy  is  strained  which  undertakes  to 
protect  any  such  half-formed  work  of  creation.  When 
therefore,  a  few  evenings  afterward,  a  shrike,  or 


THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL.  175 

butcher-bird  came  into  the  garden,  devoured  half-a- 
dozen  of  these  bogus  humming-birds,  and  hung  up  as 
many  more  on  the  thorns  of  a  honey-locust,  that 
circumstance  suggested  no  doubt  about  the  eternal 
fitness  of  things. 

The  quail  is  easily  domesticated  in  any  garden,  and, 
if  protected  will  become  as  tame  as  the  chickens.  I 
have  more  than  once  seen  them  run  where  a  hen  was 
scratching,  and  pick  up  whatever  could  be  found. 
Some  years  ago,  while  mowing  the  grass  around  the 
edges  of  another  garden,  a  nest  was  dicovered  con 
taining  a  dozen  hen's-eggs  and  seventeen  quail's-eggs. 
The  village  savants  never  did  fairly  settle  .the  questions 
raised  about  that  nest.  Did  the  hen  have  the  prior 
right,  first  choosing  the  place  and  making  the  nest? 
or  did  the  quail  pre-empt,  and  was  the  hen  an  unlawful 
squatter  ?  Did  they  lay  on  alternate  days,  or  concur 
rently  as  to  time?  And  how  did  the  eggs  get  that 
arrangement  by  which  all  the  crevices  were  filled  with 
the  smaller  ones?  And  which  did  the  incubating? 
The  quail  could  not  cover  the  nest.  But  nearly  all 
the  eggs  of  both  sorts  were  ultimately  hatched.  It  had 
been  settled  before  that  time,  by  our  system  of  patri- 
archial  jurisprudence,  that  the  issue  followed  the  con- 


i;6  /'///<;  GARDEN  039  Tilt':  ////,/,. 

dition  of  the  mother.  The  chicks  respected  that 
principle,  since  so  rudely  questioned,  and  each  followed 
its  mother,  so  that  substantial  justice  was  done,  and  the 
heavens  did  not  fall. 

No  garden  is  well  stocked  without  a  pair  or  two  of 
toads.  They  will  learn  to  distinguish  your  footsteps 
from  those  of  a  stranger,  as  they  come  out  at  twilight. 
The  toad  is  a  philosopher,  and  is  the  most  self-con 
tained  of  all  living  things.  He  meditates  all  day  in 
the  shade,  and  takes  his  dinner  promptly  at  twilight. 
That  dinner  may  require  a  thousand  insects.  The  dart 
<>f  his  tongue  is  never  made  amiss.  If  you  can  not 
cultivate  him  for  his  beauty — and  there  may  be  a  doubt 
on  that  score — you  can  still  tolerate  him  for  his  honest 
work.  There  is  some  cant  about  the  ugliness  of  the 
toad  that  you  would  not  respect  when  you  have  taught 
a  pair  to  come  out  of  their  hiding-places  at  your  call, 
have  given  them  pet  names,  and  have  seen  them  slay 
the  remorseless  mosquito.  If  you  step  on  one  after 
nightfall,  it  will  be  useless  to  objurgate.  You  can  not 
provoke  him  to  talk  back. 

Consider  what  an  advantage  the  toad  has  in  another 
respect.  He  not  only  hibernates  a  part  of  the  year, 
and  thus  saves  his  board  bills,  but  he  has  been  known 


THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL.  177 

to  suspend  active  life  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  or 
more  ;  as  when,  getting  into  a  hollow  tree,  the  orifice 
has  been  filled  up,  or  he  has  been  wedged  in  the  cleft 
of  a  rock.  But  when  restored,  he  resumes  life  with  no 
inconvenience  to  his  digestion.  What  might  be  gained 
if  one  only  had  the  vitality  of  this  batrachian !  You 
have  been  overtaken  by  a  stupidly  dull  era,  or  are 
disgusted  with  life.  What  an  advantage  to  call  on 
some  friend  to  pack  you  away  in  ice,  and  to  thaw  you 
out  only  when  the  next  quarter-century  bell  rings  1 
Since  we  can  not  go  safely  over  this  bridge  with  the 
batrachian,  it  is  not  well  to  put  such  a  discount  on  his 
ugliness,  nor  is  it  well  to  be  too  exclamatory  if  you 
tread  on  him  in  the  twilight. 

The  garden  is  the  place  to  test  a  great  many  pretty 
theories.  And  what  if  some  of  them  fail  ?  Is  not  the 
sum  of  our  knowledge  derived  from  failures,  greater 
than  all  we  have  ever  gained  by  successes?  A  feminine 
oracle,  not  content  with  her  honeysuckle  theory,  had 
said:  "  You  must  not  pull  up  a  plant  nor  a  vine  that 
springs  up  spontaneously.  Let  it  grow.  There  is  luck 
in  it."  When,  therefore,  a  melon-vine  made  its 
appearance  quite  in  the  wrong  place,  it  was  spared 
through  the  wisdom  of  that  oracle.  It  went  sprawling 


178  THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL. 

over  the  ground,  choking  more  delicate  plants,  and 
rioting  day  by  day  in  the  warm  sun  and  the  rich  loam 
underneath.  Nearly  all  its  blossoms  fell  off  without 
fruitage.  One  melon  took  up  all  the  life  of  the  vine, 
and  grew  wonderfully.  There  had  been  tape-line 
measurements  without  number.  When  it  gave  out  a 
satisfactory  sound  by  snappiug  it  with  thumb  and  fin 
ger,  and  the  nearest  tendril  had  dried  up,  it  was  held  to 
be  fully  ripe.  It  was  very  ripe.  A  gopher  had  mined 
under  that  melon,  and,  not  content  with  eating  out  the 
entire  pulp,  had,  in  very  wantonness  of  his  deviltry, 
tamped  the  shell  full  of  dirt !  Where  was  the  luck 
in  this  spontaneous  growth?  Nor  did  the  matter  end 
here.  Sometime  thereafter,  the  following  note  written 
in  a  feminine  hand,  was  found  pinned  to  that  shell: 

"GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL,  August  20,  187—. 

"MR.  B :  Dear  Sir — Since  you  have  had  the  benefit  of 

my  discovery  of  the  new  method  of  planting  honeysuckles  inser 
ted  in  potatoes,  and  you  have  also  tested  my  theory  of  the  luck 
there  is  in  melon  vines  of  spontaneous  growth,  it  has  occured  to 
me  that  you  would  fully  appreciate  my  skill  and  attainments. 
Now,  I  expect  to  be  a  candidate  for  the  chair  of  Horticulture 
and  Floriculture  in  the  University.  I  must  have  strong  recom 
mendations.  Will  you  be  kind  enough  to  furnish  me  a  certificate 
in  which  full  justice  is  done  to  my  attainments  ?  My  success  may 
hinge  on  that  certificate.  Make  it  as  strong  as  you  can  with  a 
good  conscience.  AUKAPINA. 


THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL.  179 

"  P.  S. — I  forgot  to  tell  you  that  if  you  had  pinched  out  the 
eyes  of  the  tubers  in  that  first  experiment,  while  you  would  have 
had  less  potatoes,  you  might  not  have  had  any  more  honey 
suckles.  A." 

That  certificate  was  carefully  prepared.  If  we  know 
anything  about  our  mother  tongue,  the  qualifications  of 
the  applicant  were  fully  set  out.  Singularly  enough, 
she  has  never  applied  in  person  for  the  document. 

The  almond  tree  is  worthy  of  a  place  in  every 
garden,  even  if  it  never  fruits.  The  pale  blush  of  its 
blossoms  is  the  herald  of  spring.  In  the  warm  days 
of  February  it  puts  on  a  pink  dress,  and  is  glorified. 
The  bees  come  out,  lured  evidently  by  the  scent  of  its 
flowers ;  but  they  flit  about  in  a  fugitive  way,  as  if 
not  satisfied  with  what  they  had  found.  There  are 
small  resources  of  honey  in  the  almond  blossoms  ; 
so  much  might  be  learned  from  the  spiteful  way  in 
which  the  humming  birds  darted  off  after  sounding 
a  little  with  their  long  bills.  Something  like  one 
almond  came  to  maturity  for  every  thousand  buds 
which  unfolded  in  the  early  spring.  Two  or  three 
hundred  "  paper  shells "  clung  to  the  tree  hard 
by  the  library  door,  in  the  late  autumn.  Whatever 
had  been  the  fortune  of  other  almond  growers,  here 
was  a  crop  by  an  amateur.  It  was  of  no  consequence 


THE  GARDEN  ON  Till-:  HILL. 

that  there  had  been  a  threat  discrepancy  between 
(lowers  and  fruit.  Precious  things  are  never  abun 
dant.  No,  by  no  manner  of  means,  were  these 
almonds  to  grace  any  Thanksgiving  table.  Let  thanks 
be  given  for  the  brown  shells  clinging  to  the  tree,  and 
for  whatever  of  internal  good  this  outwardness  might 
suggest.  And  not  least,  for  the  humming  bird's  nest 
on  the  end  of  a  pendent  limb,  so  like  a  warty  excres 
cence  of  the  tree  as  not  to  be  observed  by  careless 

-and  for  that  mutual  confidence  when  curly- 
headed  children  were  lifted  up,  and  birds  and  child 
ren  communed  face  to  face,  chirruped  and  were  glad. 
"  What  became  of  the  almonds?"  There  was  a 

of  misplaced  confidence.  It  was  well  enough 
that  the  finch,  the  linnet,  the  chat  and  the  sparrow, 
had  plucked  the  cherries,  sampled  the  plums,  and  had 
taken  kindly  to  the  mellow  side  of  the  pears.  Decem 
ber  had  come.  Only  here  and  there  a  fugitive  gross- 
beak  flitted  about — a  bird  with  a  wonderful  capacity 
for  mellow  song,  but  silent,  as  if  never  a  note  had  gone 
out  of  his  capacious  throat  and  chubby  bill.  Perhaps 
they  could  be  induced  to  sing  in  midwinter  if  confi 
dence  could  be  established.  Half-a-do/cn  almonds 
were  laid  on  the  walk,  which  a  pair  of  grossbeaks 


THE  GARDEN  ON  THE  HILL.  181 

"shucked"  with  wonderful  facility.  That  stout,  short 
beak  is  fitted  for  a  nut  eater.  Half  an  hour  afterward 
there  were  twenty  grossbeaks  on  that  almond  tree ; 
and  forty  minutes  later,  they  had  stored  every  almond 
in  their  crops,  cutting  away  the  shells  as  deftly  as  one 
could  do  it  with  a  sharp  knife.  So  tame  and  bold 
were  they  that  one  could  have  nearly  reached  them 
with  his  hand.  Not  a  note  was  given  in  return,  nothing 
but  a  twitter,  as  much  as  to  say,  "  This  is  a  royal  din 
ner;  there  were  just  enough  nuts  to  go  round."  And 
then  they  went  off  silently  into  the  blue  sky. 

The  first  man,  being  historically  and  traditionally 
perfect,  had  a  garden  as  his  noblest  allotment.  The 
farther  the  race  drifts  away  from  the  cultivation  of  the 
soil,  the  nearer  it  gets  to  barbarism.  The  Apache  is 
not  a  good  horticulturist,  and  therefore  there  is  no 
gentleness  in  his  blood.  Teach  him  to  love  and  culti 
vate  a  garden,  and  he  is  no  longer  a  savage.  The  best 
thought  and  the  best  inspiration  may  come  to  one 
when  all  the  gentler  ministries  of  his  garden  wait  upon 
him — -when  the  soul  of  things  is  concurrent  with  his 
own,  and  bee  and  almond  blossom,  the  rose,  and  the 
smallest  song-sparrow  in  the  tree-top,  are  revelators 
and  instructors. 


LITERATURE  AND  ART. 


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LITERATURE  AND  ART. 


IF  one  may  find  by  the  way-side  in  early  spring 
time  so  much  as  a  harebell  or  dandelion,  a  springing 
blade  of  grass  or  an  unfolding  bud,  as  much  real 
satisfaction  may  be  drawn  from  these  scant  treasures 
as  from  the  more  abounding  fullness  of  summer,  or 
the  mellow  ripeness  of  autumn.  In  all  that  relates 
to  education,  literature,  and  art,  it  is  early  spring 
time  here.  What  would  you  have  more  than  some 
way-side  evidences  of  the  serene  summer  yet  to 
follow,  and  an  intellectual  fruitage,  of  which  the 
gold  and  purple  of  the  vintage  are  but  the  faintest 
symbols?  What  is  a  quarter  of  a  century  in  the  life 
of  a  commonwealth  to  the  rounded  centuries  which 
have  matured  the  great  universities  of  Europe,  or 
even  the  two  centuries  which  have  enriched  Harvard 
and  Yale  ?  The  canvas  tents  of  '49,  pitched  on  the 


*  Delivered    on   "  Assembly  Day,"  at   the  University  of    California, 
November  12th,  1875. 


186  /.  /  TKHA  TV  RE  A  ND  A  I!  /'. 

sandy  slopes  of  the  peninsula,  promised  no  great  city, 
no  perfected  system  of  common  schools,  no  acad 
emies  and  seminaries,  and  no  university  planted  at 
Berkeley,  in  sight  from  a  city  of  more  than  a  quar 
ter  of  a  million  inhabitants.  The  dissolving  gravel- 
beds  of  a  placer-mine  and  the  arid  plains,  were  neither 
symbols  of  permanence  nor  of  bread.  What  could 
you  expect  in  this  stress  of  humanity,  even  though 
the  agglomerated  community  were  not  lacking  in 
some  of  the  best  and  bravest  of  all  lands? 

There  can  be  no  beginning  of  a  commonwealth 
until  a  Divine  Providence  begins  to  set  the  solitary 
in  families.  Homes,  children,  the  economies  of 
domestic  life,  the  commonwealth  of  husband  and 
wife,  the  law  of  the  household,  and  that  human 
providence  which  grows  tender  and  thoughtful  with 
each  young  and  dependent  life— these  are  precedent 
conditions  of  the  future  state. 

It  was  most  fitting  that  a  graduate  of  one  of  the 
oldest  colleges  in  the  country  should  have  opened 
the  first  public  school  in  California.  Thomas 
Douglas,  a  graduate  of  Yale  College,  began  a  pub 
lic  school  in  San  Francisco  on  the  3d  day  of  April, 
1848.  It  was  a  good  beginning.  Hut  when  a  lew 


LIT  ERA  T  URE  AND  ART.  187 

months  later  nearly  the  whole  population  had 
drifted  away  to  the  mines,  Douglas  was  left  high 
and  dry  on  the  sand-hills. 

All  true  scholarship  has  breadth  and  catholicity. 
Let  not  ours  be  impeached  by  ignoring  what  others 
have  done  in  the  domain  of  letters  and  science. 
The  fact  is  none  the  less  significant  that  the  public 
school,  with  its  canvas  roof,  and  three  scholars  in 
1849,  is  crowned  by  the  University  of  California 
to-day. 

Possibly,  the  pioneer  educators  builded  better 
than  they  knew.  Douglas,  the  master  of  arts  of 
Yale,  setting  the  first  stakes  in  the  sand-hills — Mar 
vin,  the  first  State  Superintendent  of  Public  Schools, 
who,  having  made  a  campaign  against  the  Indians, 
turned  over  his  emoluments  to  the  school-fund — 
Brayton,  who  conducted  for  years  the  most  success 
ful  preparatory  school  in  the  State,  a  brave,  patient, 
and  lovable  man,  whose  life  went  out  all  too  soon 
in  the  midst  of  his  noble  work — Durant,  who, 
beginning  at  the  foundations,  saw  the  University 
with  the  clear  vision  of  a  prophet,  and  lived  to  see 
the  fruition  of  his  hopes — the  gentle  and  profound 
scholar,  the  dignified  president,  the  wise  and  firm 


LITKRATURM  AND  A&T 

civil  magistrate,  who  in  the  richness  of  his  intel 
lect,  the  purity  of  his  soul,  and  the  steadfastness  of 
his  friendship,  was  more  than  president,  magistrate, 
or  scholar.  Tompkins,  as  a  legislator  and  as  regent, 
worked  with  unflagging  zeal  for  the  University,  and 
fitly  crowned  that  work  by  endowing,  out  of  his 
moderate  fortune,  the  first  professorship.  When  la- 
had  made  his  last  public  speech  in  behalf  of  the 
institution  for  which  he  had  wrought  so  well,  it 
remained  for  him  to  enter  into  the  sacred  guild  ot 
those  pioneers  who  had  gone  a  little  before — Oil 
man,  the  second  president,  whose  organizing  mind 
grasped  every  detail  of  the  University,  who  wrought 
effectively  for  it  by  day  and  planned  wisely  for  it 
by  night — a  man  of  rare  executive  ability,  who 
seemed  half-unconscious  of  his  own  power  to  influ 
ence  men  in  behalf  of  the  great  interests  for  which 
he  wrought.  Let  it  be  said  of  him  that  he  bore 
himself  in  his  high  office  with  a  patience  and 
dignity  befitting  the  Christian  gentleman  and  ac 
complished  scholar.  Such  a  man  rarely  misses 
his  place,  because  he  is  a  citizen  of  the  world  of 
letters.  It  is  here  for  a  tew  years,  and  on  the 
other  side  of  the  country  for  more.  Hut  here  or 


LITERATURE  AND  ART.  189 

there,  I  think  he  will  never  need  a  better  testimo 
nial  than  that  which  his  work  will  offer. 

Some  good  work  has  also  been  done  in  a 
scientific  way.  The  geological  survey  of  this  State 
was  arrested  by  the  impatience  of  the  people  for 
immediate  results.  The  topographical  survey  alone, 
than  which  nothing  better  has  ever  been  done  in 
this  country,  was  more  than  an  equivalent  for  the 
entire  outlay.  There  will  come  a  time  when  the 
practical  value  of  such  an  enterprise  will  be  bet 
ter  understood.  The  physical  problems  in  a  single 
State  like  California  could  not  be  solved  in  half  a 
century.  Was  it  well  to  ask  a  scientific  commis 
sion  to  solve  them  and  publish  the  results  in  a 
few  months? 

The  public  journal,  as  a  factor  in  education,  is 
here  as  elsewhere,  the  outgrowth  of  our  civiliza 
tion.  It  embodies  the  passions,  caprices,  and 
enterprises  of  the  community.  In  its  best  estate 
it  gives  the  history  of  the  world  for  one  day.  In 
its  poorest  estate  it  is  content  with  a  patent  out 
side,  the  puffing  of  some  mountebank,  and  the 
abuse  of  rivals.  But  at  the  close  of  this  quarter- 
century,  the  only  complete  history  of  the  rise  and 


190  LITER  A  TURE  AND  A 1!  /'. 

progress  of  this  commonwealth  is  that  which  the 
newspapers  contain.  I  have  seen  an  artist  sketch 
an  accurate  likeness  of  his  friend  on  his  thumb 
nail.  But  the  modern  newspaper  every  day 
sketches  the  likeness,  the  pulse,  and  the  throb 
bing  heart  of  the  civilized  world. 

Just  as  the  ideal  state  is  something  far  in  ad 
vance  of  the  actual,  so  the  ideal  newspaper  is 
something  far  better  than  exists  on  this  side  of 
the  continent.  Here  as  elsewhere,  it  is  largely 
the  product  of  steamships,  railroads,  and  tele 
graphs.  But  the  journal  of  the  future  will,  after 
all,  be  very  much  what  the  community  makes  it. 
It  is  the  child  of  civilization,  going  forward  with 
the  community  to  a  better  condition,  or  going 
backward  with  it  to  coarseness  and  barbarism. 
The  best  newspaper  a  hundred  years  ago,  was  a 
poor  affair.  A  hundred  years  hence,  the  journal 
of  to-day  will  probably  be  viewed  with  as  much 
interest  for  what  it  lacks,  as  for  what  it  contains. 

Our  ideal  newspaper  will  pander  to  no  mean 
prejudices.  It  will  be  no  generator  of  slang 
phrases.  It  will  not  murder  honest  English. 
It  will  have  ripe  and  well-digested  opinions.  It 


LITERATURE  AND  ART.  191 

will  not  truckle  to  base  men.  It  will  not  sneer  at 
religion.  It  will  keep  its  editorial  columns  above 
all  just  suspicion  of  purchase.  It  will  leave  gar 
bage  in  the  gutter.  It  will  assail  no  man  unjustly, 
nor  fear  to  defend  any  man  or  interest  because  he 
or  it  may  be  obscure  or  unpopular.  No  good  citi 
zen  will  fear  the  honest  journal  of  the  future,  and 
no  bad  man  will  like  it. 

Observe  how  the  outer  bark  of  the  madrono 
and  eucalyptus,  with  the  coming  of  every  sum 
mer,  bursts,  rolls  up,  and  falls  to  the  ground  as  so 
much  rubbish.  That  is  a  sign  of  expanding  life. 
A  great  deal  of  newspaper  rubbish  to-day  is  a 
sign  of  growth.  The  outer  rind  and  husk  of 
things  fall  to  the  ground  by  that  vital  force  which 
is  continually  developing  a  larger  and  nobler  life 
in  the  community.  No  man  will  hereafter  go  to 
the  head  of  this  profession  without  fair  scholar 
ship,  a  wide  range  of  observation,  a  large  capacity, 
to  deal  in  a  general  way  with  human  affairs,  and 
that  keen  insight  which  catches  the  spirit  and 
essence  of  this  on-going  life.  Most  difficult  of 
all  is  a  certain  power  of  statement  which  no 
school  can  teach,  and  without  which  the  highest 


192  L1TBRATVR*  AND  A/:/'. 

plane  of  the  journalist  can  not  be  reached.  Your 
long  story  will  not  be  heard.  The  world  is  wait 
ing  for  the  man  of  condensation.  Tell  it  in  tew 
words.  If  one  can  master  this  high  eclecticism  of 
thought  and  statement,  I  know  of  no  more  prom 
ising  field  for  a  young  man  to-day  than  that  of 
journalism.  If  one  cannot,  the  potato-field  in  a 
season  of  blight,  is  quite  as  promising. 

Without  this  broader  culture  for  the  journalist, 
there  will  be  great  danger  that  the  exigencies  of 
his  work  will  make  him  a  superficial  man.  The 
habit  will  grow  upon  him  of  touching  merely  the 
surface  of  things.  He  will  come  to  think  that, 
as  his  journal  is  only  for  the  day,  his  errors  are 
for  the  day  also.  The  habit  of  careful  investigation 
and  exactness  of  thought  and  statement,  will  be 
discarded  for  random  guesses  and  the  temporary 
expedients  of  the  hour.  Nothing  but  the  balancing 
influence  of  generous  culture  will  arrest  this  lap 
sing  tendency.  It  will  be  disclosed  in  platitudes 
and  commonplaces;  in  writing  against  space,  and 
in  that  dreadful  amplitude  which  buries  a  thought 
under  a  mountain  of  verbiage. 

One   cannot  fail   to  note    that  the  newspaper  has 


LITERATURE  AND  ART.  193 

been  gradually  encroaching  on  the  domain  of  lit 
erature.  It  has  absorbed  monthly  magazines  or 
forced  publishers  to  resort  to  illustrations — to  a 
sort  of  picture-book  literature  for  grown-up  chil 
dren.  It  has  driven  the  lumbering  quarterlies  into 
smaller  fields  and  diminished  their  relative  import 
ance.  The  average  citizen  craves  the  news  from 
a  journal  having  the  very  dew  of  the  morning 
and  of  the  evening  upon  it.  It  must  come  to 
him  damp  and  limp,  bringing  whatever  is  best  at 
the  smallest  possible  cost.  The  newspaper  is  the 
herald  of  the  new  era.  Its  errand  must  be  swift, 
its  statements  compact,  and  its  thought  eclectic 
and  comprehensive. 

Three  thousand  years  ago,  one  of  the  grand  old 
prophets  spoke  mysteriously  of  the  "living  spirit 
in  the  wheels."  Was  it  other  than  the  modern 
newspaper  thrown  off  by  the  pulsing  of  the  great 
cylinder  press?  But  observe  that  through  yonder 
Golden  Gate,  which  the  sun  and  the  stars  and  the 
lamps  of  men  glorify  day  and  night,  the  devil-fish 
comes  sailing  up,  and  is  no  whit  concerned 
whether  his  accursed  tentacula  close  around  saint 
or  sinner.  Is  not  that  the  fittest  symbol  of  a  pub- 


194  LITERATURE  AND  A  /,' /'. 

lie  journal  conducted  by  ignorant  and  unscrupulous 
men?  Rather  would  you  not  choose,  as  a  more 
fitting  symbol  of  the  ideal  journal,  one  of  the 
small  globules  of  quicksilver  which  you  shall  find 
on  any  of  these  encircling  hills,  so  powerless  to 
draw  to  it  an  atom  of  filth  or  rubbish,  but  ever 
attracting  the  smallest  particle  of  incorruptible  sil 
ver  and  gold? 

It  can  hardly  have  escaped  notice  that  Califor 
nia,  during  this  quarter-century,  has  produced  more 
humorists,  and  more  of  that  literature  which  is 
essentially  humorous,  than  all  the  rest  of  the 
country.  It  may  be  difficult  to  trace  to  any  out 
ward  sources  the  inspiration  of  so  much  wit.  Does 
it  lie  in  the  odd  contrasts  and  strange  situations 
which  so  often  confront  the  observer  here?  Nor 
has  this  facetiousness  depended  at  all  for  its  de 
velopment  upon  any  degree  of  prosperity.  In  fact, 
the  boldest  and  bravest  challenge  which  has  ever 
been  given  to  adverse  fortune  here,  has  been  by  Un 
gentle  humorists  who  have  suffered  from  her  slings 
and  arrows.  It  is  said:  "Cervantes  smiled  Spain's 
chivalry  away."  But  these  modern  satirists  made 
faces  at  bad  fortune;  they  lampooned  her  and 


LITERATURE  AND  ART.  195 

defied  her  to  do  her  utmost.  The  more  miserable 
they  ought  to  have  been,  the  happier  they  were. 
They  found  a  grotesque  and  comic  side  to  the 
most  sober  facts.  They  were  facetious  when  there 
was  small  stock  in  the  larder  and  smaller  credit 
at  the  banker's.  They  smiled  at  the  very  grimness 
of  evil  fortune  until  she  fled,  and,  in  doing  this, 
they  half-unconsciously  tickled  the  midriff  of  the 
world.  A  ripple  of  laughter  ran  over  the  surface 
of  society.  It  sometimes  made  slow  progress 
when  it  here  and  there  met  a  mountain  of  obtuse- 
ness.  But  wit  is  wit;  and  what  difference  does  it 
make  if,  failing  to  see  the  point,  some  people 
laugh  next  year  instead  of  this?  I  will  not  be 
distressed  because  my  friend  does  not,  to  this  day, 
see  how  the  immortal  "Squibob"  conquered  his 
adversary  at  San  Diego  by  falling  underneath  him 
and  inserting  his  nose  between  his  teeth.  Nor 
does  it  greatly  concern  me  that  he  does  not  assent 
to  the  proposition  that  John  Phoenix,  having  made 
a  national  reputation  by  editing  the  San  Diego 
Herald  for  one  week,  was  the  greatest  journalist 
of  modern  times.  If  reputation  is  the  measure 
of  greatness,  Phoenix  is  to  this  day  without  a 


196  i.i n: i; ArriiK  AND  A/:r. 

peer.  He  made  the  very  desert  sparkle  with  his 
wit.  He  was  a  humorous  comet,  shooting  across 
the  dull  horizon  of  pioneer  lite.  Men  looked  up 
and  wondered  whence  it  came  and  whither  it  had 
gone. 

Possibly,  there  is  something  favorable  to  the  play 
of  humor  in  a  greater  freedom  from  conventional 
limitations.  If  one  grows  into  this  larger  liberty, 
or  is  translated  into  it,  a  flavor  of  freshness  comes 
to  pervade  all  the  intellectual  life.  A  certain 
spontaneity  of  expression,  a  spring,  a  rioting  song 
of  gladness,  are  some  of  the  signs  of  this  more 
abounding  life.  In  homely  phrase,  we  say  there 
is  a  flavor  of  the  soil  about  it.  It  might,  there 
fore,  have  been  necessary  that  Mark  Twain  should 
sleep  on  this  soil,  and  should  have  a  wide  range 
of  pioneer  experiences,  before  he  could  become 
the  prince  of  grotesque  humorists.  He  got  up 
suddenly  from  the  very  soil  which  in  its  sc 
laboratory  colors  the  olive  and  the  orange,  and 
began  to  make  the  world  laugh.  With  a  keen 
of  tlie  symmetry  and  harmony  of  things.  In- 
had  a  keener  perception  of  all  the  shams  and 
ridiculous  aspects  of  life.  His  pungent  gospel  of 


>•       0»   T 

UIITIR  :T1 


LITERATURE  AND  ART. 

humor  is  as  sanitary  as  a  gentle  trade-wind.  He 
knew  a  better  secret  than  the  old  alchemists. 
Every  time  he  made  the  world  laugh  he  put  a 
thousand  ducats  into  his  pocket.  But  never 
until  he  had  slept  in  his  blankets,  had  been 
robbed  on  the  "Divide,"  and  had  learned  the  deli 
cate  cookery  of  a  miner's  cabin,  could  he  do  these 
things.  But  now  he  can  not  even  weep  at  the 
tomb  of  his  ancestor,  Adam,  without  moving  the 
risibles  of  half  the  world.  He  has  also  a  finer 
touch  and  flavor,  not  of  the  rankest  soil,  but  of 
that  which  gives  the  aroma  and  delicate  bouquet 
to  the  rarest  mountain-side  vintage.  When  this 
man  had  tried  his  .wit  on  a  Californian  audience 
and  had  won  an  approving  nod,  he  had  an  indorse 
ment  that  was  good  in  any  part  of  the  English- 
speaking  world. 

Of  a  more  subtile  wit  and  a  finer  grain  was 
Harte,  who  did  his  best  work  as  a  humorist  in 
California.  All  his  earlier  triumphs  were  won 
here.  His  subsequent  indorsement  in  a  wider 
field  was  only  an  affirmation  of  this  earlier  public 
judgment. 

Sometimes  in  the  thicket,  one  may  come  upon   a 


OMP 

FQP/ 


198  LITMRA  Tl'HK  AND  ART. 

wild  mocking-bird  which  is  running  up  the  gamut 
of  its  riotous  burlesque  upon  the  song  of  every 
other  bird,  and  the  sound  of  every  living  thing  in 
the  forest.  Hut  when  all  this  is  done,  that  mock 
ing-bird  will  sometimes  give  out  a  song  which 
none  other  can  match  with  its  melody.  As  much 
as  this,  and  more,  lay  within  the  range  of  this 
poet-satirist.  His  mocking  had,  however,  a  deep 
and  salient  meaning  in  it.  When  Truthful  James 
rises  to  explain  in  what  respect  Ah  Sin  is  peculiar, 
he  has  a  higher  purpose  than  merely  to  show  the 
overreaching  cunning  of  this  bronzed  heathen, 

"With  the  smile  that  was  child-like  and  bland." 

So  long  as  Ah  Sin  and  his  race  could  be  plucked 
and  despoiled  at  will,  he  provoked  no  antago 
nisms.  Hut  when  he  overmatched  the  sharpness 
of  his  spoilers,  we  have  this  talc,  with  its  moral: 

"  Then  I  looked  up  at  Nye; 

And    he  gazed  upon   me; 
And  he  rose  with   a  sigh, 
And  s;ii<l,  '('an  this  be  ? 
We  are  ruined  by  Chinese  cheap   labor  !  ' 
And  he  went  for  that  heathen  Chinee." 

Kvery  demagogue  in  the  State,  who  had  rung  the 
changes  on  the  evils  of  <  heap  labor,  felt  the 


LIT  ERA  T  URE  A  ND  ART.  1 99 

thrust ;  and  it  is  doubtful  if  one  of  them  has  for 
given  Harte  to  this  day. 

The  dogmatism  and  intolerant  assumption  which 
sometimes  become  rampant  in  scientific  societies, 
is  thus  punctured  by  Truthful  James,  in  his  de 
scription  of  "The  Society  upon  the  Stanislaus:" 

"  But  first  I  would  remark  that  it  is  not  a  proper  plan 

For  any  scientific  gent  to  whale  his  fellow-man, 

An  1  if  a  member  don't  agree  with  his  peculiar  whim, 

To  lay  for  that  same  member  for  to  'put  a  head'  on  him." 

When  Jones  undertook  to  prove  that  certain  fossil 
bones  were  from  one  of  his  lost  mules,  then  the 
trouble  began: 

"Now  I  hold  it  is  not  decent  for  any  scientific  gent 
To  say  another  is  an  ass — at  least  to  all  intent ; 
Nor  should  the  individual  who  happens  to  be  meant, 
Reply  by  heaving  rocks  at  him,  to  any  great  extent. 

"  Then  Abner  Dean  of  Angel's  raised  a  point  of  order,  when 
A  chunk  of  old  red  sandstone  took  him  in  the  abdomen, 
And  he  smiled  a  sickly  smile,  and  curled  up  on  the  floor, 
And  the  subsequent  proceedings  interested  him  no  more. 

"  For  in  less  time  than  I  write  it  every  member  did  engage 
In  a  warfare  with  the  remnants  of  the  paleozoic  age  ; 
And  the  way  they  heaved  those  fossils  in  their  anger  was  a  sin, 
Till  the  skull  of  an  old  mammoth  caved   the  head  of  Thomp 
son  in." 

When  the  supposed  pliocene  skull,  found  in  Gala- 


200  LI  •/'!•;/;. \  re  HE  AND  A  i;r. 

veras  county,  had  developed  a  good  deal  of  scien 
tific  quackery,  Harte,  in  his  "Geological  Address," 
makes  the  skull  declare  that  it  belonged  to  Joe 
1  lowers,  of  Missouri,  who  had  fallen  down  a  shaft. 
lor  six  months  thereafter  no  theorist  was  able  to 
discuss  the  character  of  that  fossil  with  a  sober 
countenance.  No  Damascus  blade  ever  cut  with 
keener  stroke  than  did  the  blade  of  this  satirist, 
even  when  it  was  hidden  in  a  madrigal  or  con- 
<  ealed  in  some  polished  sentence  of  pro 

As  a  humorist,  he  appreciated  humor  in  others. 
\Vhen  I  )i<  kens  died,  not  another  man  in  all  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  land  contributed  so  ten 
der  and  beautiful  a  tribute  to  his  memory  as  did 
Harte  in  his  poem  of  "  Dickens  in  Camp."  The 
rude  miners  around  the  camp-fire  drop  their  cards 
as  one  of  them  draws  forth  a  book  : 

"And  then,  while  round  them  shadows  gathered  faster, 

And  as  the  fire-light  fell, 
He  read  aloud  the  lx><>k  wherein  the  master 

Had  writ  ..f  'Little  Nell.' 

"  iVih.-ij^  'twas  boyish  fancy-    for  the    reader 

\Va>,  youngest  of  them  all  — 
Hut,  as  he  read,  from  clustering  pine  and  > 

A  silence  seemed  to  fall. 


LI TERA T URE  AND  ART. 

"  The  fir-trees,  gathering  closer  in  the  shadows, 

Listened  in  every  spray, 
While  the  whole  camp  with  '  Nell'  on  English  meadows 

Wandered  and  lost  their  way. 


"  Lost  is  that  camp,  and  wasted  all  its  fire, 

And  he  who  wrought  that  spell — 
Ah  !  towering  pine  and  stately  Kentish  spire, 

Ye  have  one  tale  to  tell  ! 

"Lost  is  that  camp,  but  let  its  fragrant  story 

Blend  with  the  breath  that  thrills 
With  hop-vines'  incense  all  the  pensive  glory, 

That  fills  the  Kentish  hills. 

"And  on  that  grave  where  English  oak,  and  holly, 

And  laurel  wreaths  entwine, 
Deem  it  not  all  a  too-presumptuous  folly — 

This  spray  of  western  pine  !" 

It  was  left  to  this  shy  man,  who  came  forth 
from  the  very  wastes  of  this  far-off  wilderness,  to 
lay  upon  the  bier  of  the  dead  humorist  as  fragrant 
an  offering  as  any  mortal  fellowship  could  sug 
gest.  It  was  a  song  in  a  different  key — as  if  one 
having  entered  into  the  very  life  of  the  great  nov 
elist,  had  also  for  a  moment  entered  into  his  death. 

The  wit  and  the  poetry  which  ripen  here  are 
under  the  same  sun  which  ripens  the  pomegranate 
and  the  citron.  The  grain  and  texture  have  always 


202  A  /  TERA  TURE  A ND  ART. 

been  better  than  that  suggested  by  the  coarser 
materialism  without.  It  is  little  to  him  who  is 
cutting  his  marble  to  the  divinest  form,  that  the 
whole  city  recks  with  grime  and  smoke,  and  all 
its  outlines  are  misshapen  and  ugly.  It  is  little 
to  poet  or  painter  that  sometimes  the  earth  has 
only  a  single  tint  of  gray,  since  he  may  also 
in  contrast,  what  a  transfigured  glory  there  may 
be  on  mountain  and  on  sea. 

There  are  not  at  any  time  in  this  dull  world 
so  many  genuine  humorists  as  one  may  count  on 
his  fingers.  For  lack  of  some  healthy  laughter 
the  world  is  going  to  the  bad.  It  welcomes  the 
gentle  missionary  of  humor,  and  for  lack  of  him 
it  often  accepts  those  dreary  counterfeits  who 
commit  assault  and  battery  upon  our  mother- 
tongue.  As  in  olden  time  the  prophets  were 
sometimes  stoned  in  their  own  country,  so  in 
modern  times  one  can  not  tell  whether  the  poet- 
prophct  who  comes  up  from  the  wilderness,  will 
fare  better  or  worse.  Woe  to  him  if  the  people 
can  not  interpret  him,  or  are  pi«|iied  at  his  com 
ing.  It  is  a  curious  fad  that  \\hen  Ilarte  had 
brought  forth  his  first  book  with  the  modest  title 


LIT  ERA  T  URE  AND  AR  T.  203 

of  Outer oppings,  it  was  pelted  from  one  end  of 
the  State  to  the  other.  It  did  not  contain  a  poem 
of  his  own.  But  it  did  contain  samples  of  the 
best  poetry,  other  than  his  own,  which  had  been 
produced  in  California.  His  critics,  catching  the 
suggestion  of  the  title,  flung  at  him  porphyry,  gran 
ite,  and  barren  quartz,  but  never  a  rock  containing 
a  grain  of  gold.  He  might  have  put  a  torpedo 
into  a  couple  of  stanzas  and  extinguished  them  all. 
But  he  saw  the  humorous  side  of  the  assault,  and 
enjoyed  it  with  a  keener  zest  than  any  of  his  assail 
ants. 

None  of  us  would  be  comfortable  with  only 
some  pungent  sauce  for  dinner.  But  when  a  dread 
ful  staleness  overtakes  the  world,  it  is  ready  to  cry- 
out,  "More  sauce!"  Whoever  comes,  therefore, 
bringing  with  him  salt  and  seasoning,  and  what 
ever  else  gives  a  keener  zest  to  life,  never  comes 
amiss.  Sooner  or  later  we  shall  know  him.  He 
will  come  very  near  to  us  in  his  books,  and  by 
that  subtile  law  of  communion  which,  through  the 
brightest  and  noblest  utterances,  makes  all  the  bet 
ter  world  akin. 

After  we    have    seen    the    trick    of   the  magician, 


204  /./'/•/:/;. 1  TURK  AND  A  /.'/'. 

we  do  not  care  to  know  him  any  more.  But  the 
magician  of  wit  works  by  an  enchantment  that  we 
can  never  despise.  His  spell  is  wrought  with  such 
gifts  as  are  only  given  from  the  very  heavens  to 
here  and  there  one.  It  is  not  the  mythical  Turk 
who  is  to  put  a  girdle  round  the  world,  but  the 
man  of  genius,  whose  thought  is  luminous  with  the 
light  of  all  ages.  So  Shakspeare  clasps  the  world,  and 
Dickens  belts  it,  and  the  men  of  wit  and  genius 
furnish  each  a  golden  thread  which  girds  it  about. 
The  book  of  humor  is  the  heart's  ease.  In  every 
library  it  is  dog-eared,  because  it  has  in  it  some 
surcease  for  the  secret  ills  of  life.  If  a  million 
souls  have  been  made  happier  for  an  hour  through 
the  fictions  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  what  is  the  sum  of 
good  thus  wrought !  What  lesser  good  have  they 
wrought  who  have  come  in  later  times  to  lighten 
the  dead  weight  of  our  overweighted  lives? 

Do  not  despise  the  evangel  of  humor  because 
he  comes  unlike  one  of  old,  wearing  a  girdle  'of 
camel's  hair,  and  eating  his  locusts  and  wild  honey. 
P,</;:r  with  him  if  he  comes  in  flaming  ncrk-tie  and 
flamingo  vestments,  hirsute  and  robust.  You  shall 
know  by  his  wit  that  he  is  no  charlatan  ;  but  you 


LITERATURE  AND  ART.  205 

can  not  tell  it  by  his  raiment,  nor  his  bill  of  fare. 
It  can  not  be  shown  that  the  wit  of  Diogenes  was 
any  better  for  his  living  in  a  tub.  It  is  not  prob 
able  that  a  diet  of  water-cress  would  inspire  a  bet 
ter  humor  than  a  flagon  of  wine  and  a  saddle  of 
venison.  I  would  rather  look  for  your  modern 
humorist  in  the  top  story  of  the  crowded  and  gar 
ish  hostlery;  because  if  he  is  after  game,  he  will 
be  sure  to  find  it  there. 

Another  humorist,  radically  the  product  of  Cali 
fornia,  was  Prentice  Mulford.  When  it  was  found 
that  he  had  a  genuine  vein  of  wit  in  him,  recog 
nized  alike  in  the  brilliant  salon  and  the  miner's 
camp,  he  was  sent  forth  as  another  missionary  to 
reclaim  the  world. 

The  exacting  conditions  of  pioneer  life  are  not 
favorable  to  authorship.  If  during  this  quarter  of 
a  century  not  a  book  had  been  written  in  Califor 
nia,  we  might  plead  in  mitigation  the  overshadow 
ing  materialism  which,  while  coarsely  wrestling  for 
the  gains  of  a  day,  finds  no  place  for  that  repose 
which  favors  culture  and  is  fruitful  of  books.  But 
over  the  arid  plains,  in  the  heat  and  dust  of  the 
long  summer,  one  may  trace  the  belt  of  green 


206  L1TBRATURR  .\M>  M;r. 

which  the  mountain  stream  carries  sheer  down  to 
the  sea.  So  there  have  been  many  thoughtful  men 
and  women  who  have  freshened  and  somewhat  re 
deemed  these  intellectual  wastes.  They  have  written 
more  books  in  this  quarter  of  a  century  than  have 
been  written  in  all  the  other  States  west  of  the 
Mississippi  river.  The  publication  of  some  of  the^e 
books  has  cost  nearly  their  weight  in  gold.  During 
the  period  of  twenty-five  years,  more  than  90  vol 
umes  have  been  written  by  persons  living  at  the 
time  in  this  State. 

Many  of  these  books  have  had  but  a  local  cir 
culation,  and  are  now  almost  forgotten.  Some  have 
gained  more  than  a  national  reputation.  I  enum 
erate  among  these  Halleck's  International  Law  ; 
Mountaineering,  by  Clarence  King  :  Marine  Maw 
mats  of  the  Northwestern  Coast  of  NortJi  America, 
by  Captain  Scammon  ;  The  Luck  of  Roaring 
Camp,  by  Bret  Harte ;  and  Native  Races,  by  Hu 
bert  H.  Bancroft.  Another  work  just  missed  a  more 
than  national  recognition.  Grayson,  the  self-taught 
and  heroic  naturalist,  traversed  the  forests  and  swamps 
of  Mexico,  stopping  neither  for  morass  nor  jungle, 
until  he  had  drawn  and  painted  to  life  nearly  two 


LITERATURE  AND  ART.  207 

hundred  of  the  rarest  birds  of  that  country.  His 
work,  which  is  still  in  sheets  and  manuscript,  was 
probably  at  the  cost  of  his  life.  But,  besides  the 
works  of  Audubon  and  Wilson,  I  know  of  nothing 
better  in  its  way  by  any  naturalist,  living  or  dead. 

No  one  has  sought  to  live  here  exclusively  by 
authorship.  It  has  only  been  the  incidental  occu 
pation  of  those  persons  who  have  written  out  of  the 
fullness  of  their  own  lives.  If  they  heard  no  mysteri 
ous  voice  saying  unto  them,  "Write!" — the  great 
mountains  encamped  about  like  sleeping  drome 
daries,  the  valleys  filled  with  the  aroma  of  a  royal 
fruitage,  the  serene  sky,  and  the  rythm  of  the  great 
sea,  all  make  audible  signs  to  write.  They  have 
written,  out  of  a  fresh  new  life. 

In  the  streets  of  Herculaneum  you  may  see  the 
ruts  made  more  than  two  thousand  years  ago.  The 
grooves  of  society  are  often  narrow  and  rigid  with 
the  fixedness  of  centuries.  It  may  be  better,  by  way 
of  change,  to  propel  a  velocipede  on  a  fresh  track 
than  to  run  four  gilded  wheels  in  the  dead  grooves 
which  have  been  cut  by  the  attrition  of  ages.  After 
one  has  known  the  satiety  which  comes  from  the 
mild  gabble  of  society,  there  is  a  wonderful  freshness 


2o8  /, /  TERATURE  AND  A  /:  T. 

in  a  war-whoop  uttered  in  the  depths  of  the  wilder 
ness  ! 

It  is  this  large  acquaintance  with  nature — this 
lying  down  with  the  mountains  until  one  is  taken 
into  their  confidence — a  grim  fellowship  with  untamed 
savageness — that  may  give  a  new  vitality,  and  enlarge 
the  horizon  of  intellectual  life.  Whence  comes  this 
man  with  his  new  poetry,  which  confounds  the  critics? 
and  that  man  with  his  subtile  wit  borrowed  from  no 
school?  I  pray  you  note  that  for  many  a  day  his 
carpet  hath  been  the  spicula  of  pine,  and  his  atmos 
phere  hath  been  perfumed  by  the  fir-tree.  He  has 
Been  the  mountains  clad  in  beatific  raiment  of  white, 
and  their  "  sacristy  set  round  with  stars."  He  will 
never  go  so  far  that  he  will  not  come  back  to  sing 
and  talk  of  these,  his  earliest  and  divinest  loves.  So 
Miller  sings  of  "The  Sierra,"  of  "Arizona,"  of  "The 
Ship  in  the  Desert."  And  Harte  comes  back  again 
to  his  miner's  camp,  and  to  the  larger  liberty  of  the 
mountains.  And  there  fell  on  Starr  King  a  grander 
inspiration  after  he  had  seen  the  white  banners  of  the 
snowstorm  floating  from  the  battlements  of  Yosemite. 

We  have  brought  forth  nothing  out  of  our  poverty, 
but  rather  out  of  an  affluence  which  could  not  be 


LITERATURE  AND  ART,  209 

wholly  restrained.  As  a  gardener  clips  his  choicest 
shrubs,  casting  the  tangled  riotousness  of  bud  and 
blossom  over  the  wall,  so  there  are  many  here  who 
have  only  trimmed  a  little  what  they  have  planted  in 
their  own  gardens  of  poetry  and  fiction. 

The  little  that  has  been  done  here  in  art  is  rather  a 
sign  of  better  things  to  come.  Art  must  not  only 
have  inspiration,  but  it  needs  wealth  and  the  society 
of  a  ripe  community  for  its  best  estate;  It  is  possible 
to  paint  for  immortality  in  a  garret.  But  a  great  deal 
of  work  done  there  has  gone  to  the  lumber-room. 
Not  only  must  there  be  the  fostering  spirit  of  wealth 
and  letters,  but  art  also  needs  a  picturesque  world 
without — -the  grand  estate  of  mountains  and  valleys, 
atmospheres,  tones,  lights,  shadows — and  if  there  be  a 
picturesque  people,  we  might  look  for  a  new  school 
of  art,  and  even  famous  painters.  Where  a  poet  can 
be  inspired,  there  look  also  for  the  poetry  which  is 
put  on  canvas. 

Jn  one  respect  our  modern  civilization  is  nearly 
fatal  to  art.  Philip  Hamerton  says  that  "  a  noble 
artist  will  gladly  paint  a  peasant  driving  a  yoke  of 
oxen ;  but  not  a  commercial  traveler  in  his  gig .  .  . 
Men  and  women  have  a  fatal  liberty  which  moun- 


210  LI  TEH  A  IT  HE  AND  A  /.''/'. 

tains  have  not.  They  have  the  liberty  of  spoiling 
themselves,  of  making  themselves  ugly,  and  mean, 
and  ridiculous.  A  mountain  can  not  dress  in  bad 
u>te,  neither  is  it  capable  of  degrading  itself  by  vice. 
Noble  human  life  in  a  great  and  earnest  age  is  bet 
ter  artistic  material  than  wild  nature ;  but  human 
life  in  an  age  like  ours  is  not." 

If  a  great  artist  were  asked  to  paint  a  fashionable 
woman  in  the  prevailing  stringent  costume,  do  not 
blame  him  if  he  faints  away.  There  will  never  get 
into  a  really  great  painting  any  of  the  stiff  and  con 
strained  costumes  of  our  time.  Observe  that  the 
sculptor  rarely  cuts  the  statue  of  a  modern  states 
man  without  the  accessories  of  some  flowing  and 
graceful  attire.  He  can  not  sculpture  a  modern 
dress-suit  without  feeling  that  he  has  offered  an 
affront  to  art. 

Hut   in    spite   of  our   civilization  there  is  a 
deal  that  is  picturesque  among  the  people — the   Par 
ee,    Mohammedan,   Malay,  and  Mongol,  whom  one 
may  sometimes  meet   on    the  same  street — the   red 
shirt  of  the   Italian    fisherman,    and    the    lateen   sail 
which   sends  his   boat    flying   over   the    water.     The 
very  distresses  and  distraints  of  men  here  have  made 


LITERATURE  AND  ART.  211 

them  picturesque.  I  have  seen  a  valedictorian  of  a 
leading  college  deep  down  in  a  gravel-mine,  directing 
his  hydraulic  pipe  against  the  bank.  Clad  in  a  gray 
shirt  and  slouch-hat,  he  was  a  far  better  subject  for  a 
painter  than  on  the  day  he  took  his  degree.  The 
native  Californian  on  horse-back,  with  poncho,  som 
brero,  and  leggings,  is  a  good  subject  for  the  canvas, 
as  well  as  the  quaint  old  church  where  he  worships, 
so  rich  in  its  very  ruins.  Moreover,  the  whole  phys 
ical  aspect  of  the  country  is  wonderfully  picturesque. 
The  palm-tree  lifting  up  its  fronded  head  in  the 
desert,  the  great  fir-tree  set  against  the  ineffable 
azure  of  the  heavens,  the  vine-clad  hills,  the  serrated 
mountains  which  the  frosts  have  canonized  with  their 
sealed  and  unsealed  fountains,  and  all  the  gold  and 
purple  which  touch  the  hills  at  even-tide — these  are 
the  full  rich  ministries  of  nature.  It  may  take  art  a 
thousand  years  to  ripen  even  here.  For  how  many 
ages  had  the  long  procession  of  painters  come  and 
gone  before  Raphael  and  Michael  Angelo  appeared? 
Our  young  art-school  will  some  day  have  its  treas 
ures;  and  there  will  be  hung  on  these  walls  the  por 
traits  of  other  men  whose  culture  and  influence  will 
be  worth  more  than  all  the  gold  of  the  mountains. 


212  /.  /  //;/;.  1  TURE  AND  A  RT. 

Let  the  artist  set  up  his  easel  and  write  his  silent 
poem  upon  the  canvas.  Welcome  all  influences 
which  soften  this  hard  and  barren  materialism.  lU 
fore  the  mountains  were  unvexed  by  the  miner's  drill 
the  land  itself  was  a  poem  and  a  picture.  One  day 
the  turbid  streams  will  turn  to  crystal  again,  and  the 
only  miner  will  be  the  living  glacier  sitting  on  its 
white  throne  of  judgment  and  grinding  the  very 
mountains  to  powder.  Fortunate  they  who  can  catch 
this  wealth  of  inspiration.  These  are  the  ministers 
and  prophets  whose  larger  and  finer  interpretation 
of  nature  are  part  of  the  treasures  of  the  new  com 
m  on  wealth. 


LTBRARy_ 


YC   16054 


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